In 1937, during the Great Depression, Napoleon Hill wrote “Think and Grow Rich” – one of the best books ever written on the subject of personal development and success. Napoleon Hill has inspired millions of people and has been a major influence in the work of today’s biggest motivational speakers and coaches, including Steven Covey and Anthony Robbins.

In his book, Napoleon Hill discusses eleven traits of successful leaders. Not only are these leadership characteristics essential in any professional leadership role, more importantly, they can serve you as great points of reference in your personal life. You are the leader of your own life. You shape your destiny based on the choices and decisions you make each and every day.

Keep this list in mind as you navigate through your own life’s journey. These cornerstone qualities will heighten your awareness and encourage you to assume full responsibility for your life and become the leader you were meant to be.

Life Coaching Questions:

As you read through the list below, ask yourself the following questions:

• Which leadership qualities am I consciously expressing in my daily life?
  
• What personal qualities are not in alignment with my current lifestyle?
  
• What leadership traits are currently not being expressed in my life? What is preventing me from integrating them into my life? How can I become a better steward of my own life?
  
• What am I committed to? What choices will I make?

Here are the eleven leadership traits as discussed by Napoleon Hill.

1. Unwavering courage

2. Self control

3. A keen sense of justice

4. Definiteness of decision

5. Definiteness of plans

6. Doing more than one is paid for

7. A pleasing personality

8. Sympathy and understanding

9. Mastery of detail

10. Willingness to assume full responsibility

11. Cooperation

In this video, St. Louis life coach and career consultant Dieter Pauwels talks with Christine Buck about the Power of Intention on KPLR11 in St. Louis. Setting your intent is a powerful force for co-creating your own reality and attracting certain experiences and outcomes in your life. If you want to have a better job, a different career, or a more fulfilling relationship, it starts with setting and stating your intention.

The Power of Intention from Dieter Pauwels on Vimeo.

In this video Life and career coach Dieter Pauwels talks about the importance of developing a postive attitude in creating the life and career you want on KPLR11 News at Noon in St. Louis, MO. (video)

Life Coaching Principles of Attraction: A Positive Attitude (video) from Dieter Pauwels on Vimeo.

Stress often causes us to breathe shallowly and this almost always causes increased stress. Mentally scan your body for physical tension. Does your chest feel tight?
If so, you may be holding your breath without even knowing it. Shallow breathing puts less oxygen into the blood stream, producing an increase in muscle tension. When you experience headaches or feel anxious and uptight, try this:

• Choose a comfortable place to sit, preferably away from other people. Sit up straight and keep your feet flat on the floor. Imagine and feel your feet being rooted and connected to the earth.
  
• Place your hand on your chest. Place the other hand at your middle Dan Tian, one of your body's three reservoirs of energy centered at the middle of the chest.
  
• Begin taking slow, deep belly breaths. Concentrate on your body expanding and contracting. Visualize your energy sinking lower and lower into your body. Continue this breathing exercise for one to three minutes or a minimum of ten sets.  Breathing into the lower Dan Tian (below the naval) helps release fear and anxiety. In doing so, you create additional stability, and become more centered and secure within yourself and your body.

In this video, career coach and personal life coach Dieter Pauwels talks with Christine Buck about the importance of maintaining good posture on News at Noon at KPLR11 St. Louis. Your body language is an important part of your communication and a skill that can enhance your personal and professional life.

Posture and Body Language from Dieter Pauwels on Vimeo.

Negative emotions such as fear, stress, anxiety, guilt, or resentment burn your will power and drain your energy more and faster than anything else in your life.

Emotions are labels we put on ourselves to describe a very personal physical experience. They arise from personal judgment, low self-esteem or a lack of trust in your own capabilities. These labels confine you to an imaginary box and inhibit your innate ability to learn, grow and expand.

Seek truth in your body

When you experience anxiety, fear, stress or worry, be aware that these emotional states are logical and intuitive responses to uncertainty. However, prolonged exposure to these negative emotional states can affect your self esteem and erode your self confidence.

Pay attention to your emotions. Allow yourself to feel your stress, anxiety or fear instead of avoiding, rationalizing or judging it. How do you experience stress? How does fear express itself in your body? How does anxiety feel? How does worry move through your body?

Once you acknowledge and become fully present with your emotions, you can start to take control of your own feelings, instead of having them run your life. There is tremendous personal power in facing what feels uncomfortable at first.

In his bestselling book, “The Power of Now”, Eckhart Tolle wrote that “If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won’t lose yourself in the external world, and you won’t lose yourself in your mind.”

We don’t typically consider the possibility that our emotional experience is there to teach us something. When you allow yourself to feel what you’re really feeling and listen to the truth in your body, you will gain remarkable insights into who you are and the emotional needs you have been avoiding or ignoring.

Frequently returning negative emotions give you an opportunity to become more aware of what’s really going on in your life.

Start moving

Energy in motion creates emotion. The energy needed to move forward and fully engage in the process of your life comes from your emotional state. Moving will not only discharge some of your anxious energy but it will change your emotional state. You will feel like you are doing something and moving forward.

Take action

Create a list of 5 things you can do or steps you can take to make your lifestyle congruent with that what you really want and need in your life. Each step will help to further dissolve the negative emotion bit by bit, bringing hope and empowering you to continue to take action toward meeting your challenge.

The launch of News 11 at Noon on April 6 marked a new venture into the daytime news market for the station. Anchored by KPLR's well respected news veteran Christine Buck, the one-hour program highlights local news, national headlines, live breaking news, weather and daily features. Christine Buck, who has been with the station for over 30 years has been honored and recognized for her work as well as her community involvement.

Joining Christine Buck each day on News 11 at Noon is Chief Meteorologist, John Fuller, who provides in-depth weather reports as well as news features on a regular basis. Fuller, who has been with KPLR-TV since November 2008, brings a loyal following from his many years as a popular meteorologist in the market.

Life and Career Coach, Dieter Pauwels will appear every Friday on KPLR-TV's News 11 at Noon. You can watch the daily highlights of each show at http://www.cw11tv.com/news/noon_show

We live in a world with tremendous possibilities, endless opportunities and more choices than during any other time in history.

With the choices and freedoms we enjoy, come a variety of challenges. The choices we make are not always positive. In fact, some of them can be self-destructive.

Choices bring with them increased responsibilities, challenges and changes. In the face of the myriad of options we have, our challenge is to make decisions that will advance ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Change and challenge often combined leave us in dynamic, fast paced and complex situations that we are not always prepared to deal with. Change, and the challenge of dealing with it, creates anxiety, discomfort and a feeling of uncertainty among many of us.

Dieter Pauwels is a life career coach, speaker and author based in St. Louis, MO.
He facilitates personal and organizational transformation and works with both individuals and teams to create new possibilities, navigate change and maximize their productivity and personal effectiveness. 

If you're like me, and most other people, there are things in your life that you wish were different and would like to change for the better. Although you may have had the best intentions to change in the past, for some reason you have not been able to successfully achieve the results you want.

Perhaps you have wanted to kick a bad habit. Or you feel you deserve a raise or promotion at work, yet something is preventing you from asking for it. Alternatively, you find yourself in a relationship that is no longer fulfilling. Maybe you have wanted to lose weight, and have tried all the miracle diets, or joined a local health club, but never shed those extra pounds.

What could prevent you from making the changes you desire?

1. Positive side effects 

Sometimes you may try to create change in your life, but you are not consciously aware of the positive benefits or side effects that you are getting from your current situation.

Some people who label themselves as depressed, stay depressed, because of the extra emotional attention they are receiving from family and friends. The desire for attention, or the need for significance, becomes a strong enough motivator for them to stay depressed.

Think about the positive benefits of the situation you would like to change. What are some of the emotional, mental or physical positive side effects of your current situation? How important are these benefits to you? How could you maintain the same positive side effect by making the change you desire?

2. Inner conflict

Sometimes you may resist the change you think you want, because of an inner conflict between the values you hold.
 
Values are basically ideals that are important to you in your life. They are usually expressed in abstract terms such as success, respect, freedom, health, love, loyalty, honesty, integrity and so forth.
 
Let's assume that you want to get a promotion at work but never asked for it.
 
Now imagine for a moment that you actually did receive the promotion you wanted. What would getting a promotion mean to you? More money? And how important would that be compared to some other values that you hold? 
 
If a promotion means a better paycheck, but it also means more time away from your family, this may create inner conflict which will likely cause you to resist moving forward. What you resist will persist!

3. Self-limiting beliefs and thoughts
 

Another reason why you might resist change is because t you’re holding on to limiting or outdated beliefs that prevent you from moving forward and getting the results you really want.
 
Think about the change you want to make …
 
How confident are you that reaching your goal or outcome is possible for you? Do you believe that you have what it takes to make that change? In other words, do you believe that you are truly capable of getting what you want? Do you believe you are deserving of the change you want?

Now, again imagine that you already successfully achieved your outcome. How would this new situation affect you and the people around you? And, would that be okay? 
 
By exploring some of the questions above, you may discover some limiting beliefs you hold about yourself or the situation you want to change. 

It is only when you become consciously aware of the internal barriers - positive side effects, conflicting values or limiting beliefs - that you will be able to make a full personal commitment to the process of change.

Remember the last time you were at a networking event or a reception and you were introduced to someone, yet within a few minutes after the introduction you could not remember her name? Or you were having dinner and someone you met before walked into the restaurant, but you could not recall his name? Does that sound familiar? What did you do?

1. Focus

The neurological pathway in the brain that is used to process your internal dialogue is the same pathway used for selective listening. Have you ever attended a presentation but you were so caught up with other thoughts that you didn’t hear a word that was being said?

Focus your attention fully on the other person while they’re saying their name. Look the person in the eyes for a few seconds while shaking their hand firmly.

2. Listen and repeat

Listen attentively to the person saying their name and repeat their name back to them. If you’re not sure how to spell the name, ask them to spell it out for you. Rest assured, people love to say their name!

3. Visualize

Pick your favorite color (mine is blue), and imagine writing their name in big bright letters on their forehead.  Keep this image in your mind anywhere between 5 and 10 seconds. Make sure you don’t use small letters as they are harder to read and remember.

While seeing the name clearly printed on their forehead, repeat the name to yourself silently a couple of times. It also helps to use the same voice qualities of the person, and it makes it more fun.

4. Write it

The final step is to write the person’s name on your hip or in the air. I recommend you keep your hand movements fairly small …

Dieter Pauwels is a career life coach, speaker and author based in St. Louis, MO.
He facilitates personal and organizational transformation and works with both individuals and teams to create new possibilities, navigate change and maximize their productivity and personal effectiveness. 

"Each human being has been granted a virtue: The capacity to choose. For he who does not use his virtue, it becomes a curse – and others will always choose for him." 
– Paulo Coelho

Personal boundaries define your personal preferences; they outline what is acceptable to you and what is not, based on your values, your beliefs and personal philosophy. They define how you allow others to treat you. 

Your capacity and freedom to choose allows you to define healthy personal boundaries.

The main purpose of setting boundaries is to protect, respect and take care of yourself. Unless you are able to recognize and honestly communicate your personal boundaries, you’ll never be able to respect and truly love yourself and get in touch with who you really are.

Establishing boundaries in your personal and professional life is an important step in taking full responsibility for yourself and taking ownership of your daily choices. Without a clear understanding of who you are and what makes you unique, it is difficult to create healthy emotional boundaries. Healthy boundaries come from a good sense of self-worth, which promotes high self esteem and self confidence. 

When your sense of self-worth is dependent on your relationships, your work or career, you’re giving away your personal power. You’re setting yourself up to be a victim of circumstances over which you have little or no control. You’ll become reactive to negative events in your life and you feel as if you have no choice in the matter.

When you are not clear about your personal boundaries, or you have established weak boundaries, you invite others to take control of your choices, and thus your life.

Have you ever felt trapped in a relationship, a career or a job? Did you feel resentful, frustrated, angry or perhaps victimized? Did you blame your boss, your spouse, or perhaps the state of the economy?

When you feel that you don’t have a choice, you’ll find yourself doing things you don’t want to, or doing things that you feel you should or must do.

Next time you hear yourself saying words like "I have to", "I must", or "I need to", remember that you always had and have a choice. Change the words "I must" or "I have to" and replace them with "I choose to", and notice your reaction and emotional response.

Recognizing and accepting that you do have choices is the first step to consciously setting healthy boundaries. This process takes time, genuine intention and courage.

Your heightened awareness will empower you to choose in every situation. You will choose to say YES to those things in your life that make you feel more alive, and say NO to those things and people that continue to drain your energy. The choice is yours.

Dieter Pauwels is a professional certified life and career coach based in St. Louis, MO. As a coach, speaker and author, he facilitates personal and organizational transformation. He works with both individuals and teams to create new possibilities, manage change and maximize their productivity and personal effectiveness.
You can visit his life and business coaching website at or read his comments and thoughts on the impact of coaching on life and business on this blog.

What can the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly teach us about personal development, emotional boundaries, change and creating new possibilities? 

Consider the following.

Every caterpillar has a specific destiny - to become a butterfly.

Though it has no choice in the matter – it will always be a butterfly! – It must nonetheless eat to gain strength and size to reach its potential as a beautiful winged creature.

That you have a free will and so many choices, of course, only heightens your responsibility to find your true vocation in life.

Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist who survived the horror of the Nazi death camps during World War II, wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, that life charges each of us to carry out a specific mission. This particular task is ours alone, for our lives can neither be replaced, nor repeated.

"There are two great days in a person's life -
the day we are born and the day we discover why." (W. Barcley)

You cannot become a butterfly by remaining a caterpillar.

At first, a caterpillar protects itself from the outside world, wrapped inside a chrysalis. It then grows and strengthens itself until the day it is ready to emerge as a whole new being.

Just like a caterpillar, you want to give yourself permission to seek a safe space at times to cherish, rejuvenate, reflect, strengthen - and sometimes heal - yourself for your continued journey toward freedom, success, happiness and fulfillment. 

Yet, you cannot become what you want by remaining what you are. Whatever you choose to become, you must be prepared to break out of the cocoon of self-limiting beliefs, past hurts, regrets and fears that hold you back, and do the work required – whatever the risks.
Because for things to change in your life, you have to change!

"You must take personal responsibility.
You cannot change the circumstances,
the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.
That is something you have charge of." (Jim Rohn)

Once a butterfly, you can never go back to being a caterpillar.

Once you break out of your limiting and self-imposed cocoon, you will create new insights, new possibilities for growth – and even more change.

Welcome change as an opportunity to grow and to become more of who you really are.

About Dieter Pauwels:

Dieter Pauwels is a professional personal  life coach, business and career coach, speaker and author, facilitating personal and organizational transformation. He works with both individuals and teams to create new possibilities, manage change and maximize their productivity and personal effectiveness.
You can visit his life coaching and business coaching website at or read his comments and thoughts on the impact of coaching on life and business coaching blog.

When people talk and think about the word 'potential', all too often they refer to one's unique capabilities, talents and strengths. I believe this offers a limited perspective, because true potential can only be fostered at the level of identity, your own special way of being in this world.  

About Dieter Pauwels:

Dieter Pauwels is a professional certified life, business and career coach, speaker and author, facilitating personal and organizational transformation. He works with both individuals and teams to create new possibilities, manage change and maximize their productivity and personal effectiveness.

You can visit his life and business coaching website at or read his comments and thoughts on the impact of coaching on life and business on this blog.

You have probably heard the saying that if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten; meaning you’ll keep creating the same results over and over again. Sounds logical, doesn’t it?

What road are you currently traveling on? Are you heading in the right direction? How do you know?  Explorers use a compass to guide them. We have all been blessed with an inner compass to guide us on our journey through life as well.

Your inner compass is your life’s purpose. It is calibrated by your core values and principles and the beliefs that support them. You cannot always predict what the road ahead will look like, but when you trust your inner compass you will always stay 'on course.'

Like a compass, your unique purpose is a strong source of guidance in times of adversity and challenge. When you come to a crossroad in your life, feel temporarily lost or sidetracked, you can always find your 'true north' when you are willing and able to trust your inner compass.

The purpose that guides you is that special something inside, that gives your life meaning and direction. It inspires you, excites you, and makes you feel most alive. When you embrace your purpose, you uncover your passion.  You become aware of the burning desire that smolders deep within you.

Your purpose shows you what you should do; your passion ignites the spark within you and creates the energy you need to pursue it. 

Living a life of purpose and passion is one of great joy. Because your purpose resonates within you at such a deep emotional level, it is your responsibility and your greatest joy to discover it, live it and fulfill it. When you do, you find a life filled with energy and vibrancy.  </