“What does personal development mean to you?”
This is a question I have asked to almost 200 of the previous podcast’s guests.
In this celebratory episode #300, we will find some answers! I took the opportunity to revisit this particular question, and out of all the previous episodes, I chose 11 of my favourite answers.
My intention is that through the wisdom of these answers you will gain an insight, a deeper understanding about your own journey of personal development.
Featured guests in order of appearance:
02:15 Victoria Rader (#234)
03:23 Dr John Demartini (#190)
03:35 Rich Waterman (#021)
03:57 Emma Estrela (#018)
04:44 Tim van der Vliet (#208)
05:55 Brian Tracy (#230)
06:16 Jean Atman (#127)
06:57 Andrew Kap (#067)
07:20 Paul Levitin (#243)
08:14 Simon Paul Sutton (#222)
09:43 Barbara Lima (#210)
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𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲:
For your FREE ebook with the top 10 podcast episodes that offer the greatest value in 3 main categories of your life, go to https://personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/top10
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𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁:
I am Agi Keramidas, a zealous podcaster and a knowledge broker. I am on a mission to inspire you to grow, stand out, and take action toward the next level of their lives.
Visit my website: agikeramidas.com
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SUMMARY:
"11 Experts Reveal What Personal Development Means To Them"
Personal development is a journey to create the life you truly desire. It is a term that encompasses the mastery of both physical and mental attributes to become the person you aspire to be. It requires a deeper understanding of yourself and a rational mind to make the best decisions. It involves carving out the space to explore possibilities and discovering what works best for you. In this episode 300 of the Personal Development Mastery podcast, guests discuss their views on personal development and how it has impacted their lives. They explore the temporality of the word and how it has opened up new doors for them. They also share their thoughts on previous podcasts and offer their own answers to the question of what personal development means to them.
Victoria Raders' answer to what does personal development mean to her is represented by the story of Michelangelo carving David out of the faulty marble. To her, it is about breaking through obstacles and studying what is in front of you to create something beautiful and meaningful. She believes that it requires patience, persistence, and dedication to create something that stands the test of time. This is the type of approach she takes to her own personal development journey. She wants to take the time to understand what she is working with, break through any obstacles, and create something beautiful and meaningful.
Personal development is a journey of self-exploration, coming home to oneself, and body intelligence. It is a process of understanding one’s personas, integrating them into authenticity, and living an authentic and integral life. It is taking control of one’s life, steering it towards success, happiness, and personal wealth. It is getting to know oneself, recognizing needs, desires, and what feels good. It is also about breaking old patterns, giving oneself permission to live a more fulfilling life, and becoming a vast sovereign being. Finally, it is a duty, not a luxury, to do more mentally stimulating activities and develop oneself.
Barbara Lima and Agi Keramidas discussed the concept of personal development. For Barbara, personal development is like shaking a Polaroid to reveal one's true self. It requires consistency and repetition in order to master it. For her, personal development is like water - it is vital and liminal. It is a space to cultivate oneself, to understand one's true nature, and to be present. It is a process of liquid newness that can be molded to one's desires. It is a journey of discovering the shadows and facing them in order to grow.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
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Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.
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Agi Keramidas 0:00
What does personal development mean to you? This is a question I have asked to almost 200 of the previous podcasts guests. And in this episode 300, we will find some answers
Agi Keramidas 0:21
welcome to Personal Development mastery podcast helping you take the simple actions to master personal development and create the life you yearn for. I am your host, Agi Keramidas. And my mission is simple to inspire you to take action towards a purposeful and fulfilling life. We often use the term personal development, especially those of us that are in this environment, we often use the term without actually taking the time to contemplate what it really means, and specifically what it means to you. You see, we are all unique, and in the same way that the term success is different for different people. The same goes for the term personal development, what personal development means to me might be different than what it means to you. In this celebratory episode 300 of the podcast, I will take the opportunity and revisit this particular question. What does personal development mean to you? Show out of the previous 299 episodes, I have chosen 11 of my favourite answers that my guests gave me over the years to the question, what does personal development mean to you? And in this episode, I will play these 11 answers for you. without me saying anything in between only 11 answers to that same question. I hope that through the wisdom of these answers, you will gain an insight a deeper understanding about your own journey of personal development. So let's begin. What does personal development mean to you?
Victoria Rader 2:15
Breaking Through marble? I will I will, I will I will give you a 32nd thing that drives me everything I do. That's 1400s There is a sculptor Donatella who is commissioned to carve a sculpture and he's given a huge marble block. You know, he studies that he says faulty faulty marble too many veins get rid of it. And then 50 years later, the same the different sculpture that we know Michelangelo out of that marble carves the most famous Western sculpture that still stands in Florence, which is David. And so when the contemporaries asked Michelangelo, how could you possibly carve David out of this faulty marble, he answers in a way that inspires everything I do. He says, I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free. So that's to me personal development, that is the angel in the marble get rid of the marble by surrendering the M to E.
Dr John Demartini 3:23
Personal development is the journey of taking your personas and integrating them into authenticity. And once you're authentic, your personal development is now an authentic path. You're now living authentically and integral.
Rich Waterman 3:35
For me personal development is the journey of coming home to who you truly are. And it never ends.
Agi Keramidas 3:53
What does personal development mean to you?
Emma Estrela 3:57
Personal development means to me self exploration, I think and then how can that benefit others? Yeah. I don't know to expand on that. I mean, it could be good. Or it could be bad. It could be No, it's it's all about. It's all about the journey, isn't it? So I think personal development is just to be open to more to more things and to trust. Trust not from the head anymore, you know, doesn't necessarily need to be an achievement or I've all understood this. I can go there and I think it needs to be more from the heart. Does it feel good for me? And then from the gut to my chest it's gonna do like the intuitions.
Tim van der Vliet 4:44
Personal Development is for me a process of getting more body intelligence. And body intelligence is the same as the intuitive mind yet With respect to the rational mind, so say for example, how do I find the truth is when I feel something works for me, and I've practice it. And I can guide my rational mind around it by measuring by a double clinical trial, or things like that. So, personal development is for me to learn to listen to my body, and my intuitive mind, using my rational mind getting the two alliances, and setting out the path of what I want from life. And also, you know what, because this is a selfish process, you could say, and then the ultimate, this is not a paradox, the ultimate selfless, selfish act, is to start helping others.
Brian Tracy 5:55
Personal Development means taking control of your life, and steering your life like steering a car, so that you achieve success, happiness, and personal wealth.
Jean Atman 6:16
It really is getting to know yourself recognising your needs, your desires, what feels good to you being able to move in that direction. And just a deeper understanding of self to me as personal development, because when you can understand what's happening within there, you can really consciously create your world. But until you sort of know what you even want, it's really hard to create from that place, you just sort of take the scraps of whatever you're, you're running into. So I think it's no, no thyself, I would say in the most brief form.
Andrew Kapp 6:57
Basically, it means working on any old patterns that you may have experienced in the past that are encouraging you to doubt or to believe in limits. For me, personal development is finding ways of going around those patterns that we unintentionally given so that we can give ourselves permission to live a more fulfilling life.
Paul Levitin 7:20
At its base level, personal development is everything. Right? Because of what we've said already, you're you're getting better or you're getting worse, you're spiralling up, or you're spiralling down. So it's not, you know, personal development, or chill, it's personal development or die. Right. And, you know, in a physical way, you know, I again, I come from the fitness space, so I think about my physical body a lot. But also the mind, we know for a fact that people who read more who do Sudoku, who do more puzzles, who are mentally more active, their brain ages much more gracefully, they have less chances of having Alzheimer's, less less chances of dementia, a million things like that. So personal development to me, it becomes our duty, it is not like a luxury of, oh, well, that's cool for them. But I don't have time.
Simon Paul Sutton 8:14
We've been talking about personas, and on some level dissolving our personas, and being the vast sovereign beings that we are. And so for me, it's about developing ourselves. And, and I think when I hear when I say this right now, and I think of the word develop, what pops up is this old cameras with the you used to have to shake the new step of shake the image now Polaroid, the Polaroid Thank you, yes, and used to have to shake it. So as you as you asked me, I had this vision of the Polaroid. And what we're doing is we're shaking the the Polaroid, in order to see who we truly are. And that, for me is what personal development is. And what I love about you calling it personal develop mastery, the mastery of that is the consistency to show up and face our shadows, and face all of all of what we've been through in order to see who we truly are. And that for me that mastery comes from consistency and repetition. So that's that's the that's what comes up in this moment.
Agi Keramidas 9:38
What does personal development mean to you?
Barbara Lima 9:43
Though, the word that comes to mind is water for some reason. And I say that because water is vital in our lives, and I believe that a life without personal development is not a Life really, I believe that we come here to, to grow. I believe that we're given different opportunities for that to happen. That usually happens in the space of darkness. And I love using an analogy to illustrate this. The seed in the soil needs that dark space for it to start thriving. Right. And so this is where the cultivation starts. And this is the reason why I believe we're here. We're here to understand the nature of who we are. And through and when I say understanding, it's not from the analytical mind, it's not through the mind. It's understanding who we are by being present. And it's in that space of presence and silence, that we can start that process of personal development. So personal development, for me, is water in presence. And not only because it's vital, but because it's fluid. It's liminal. Personal development is a liminal space of liquid newness, and you can shape it the way you want. Nothing is static, nothing is unchangeable. It's the very possibility of changing. That is one of the greatest gifts that were given when we come into this world. And it's the very thing that we are constantly invited to explore. Because the only thing that's certain is temporary. And so, temporality I'm struggling with this word today is that realm of possibilities of change everything changes in life I love using biomimicry to to navigate the world. This biomimicry for those who are not familiar with the term, it's, it's to imitate nature. When we observe nature, it's constantly changing. And so change is an intrinsic, intrinsic aspect of who we are. Personal development is that now, what I do with that is up to me, I can sit in comfort, and just watch these possibilities pass in front of me. Or I can sit and observe those possibilities. From a perspective of taking them and turning them into something else. It's always about the possibility to transform into something more whole, or I don't want to use the word better, because I think it's very dualistic. But going back to wholeness is probably the idea that I want to explore with you.
Agi Keramidas 13:16
I hope that through the wisdom of these answers, you have gained an insight some deeper understanding about your own journey of personal development and what that term means to you. Thank you for listening. For a free ebook with the top 10 podcast episodes that offer the greatest value in three main categories of your life. Go to personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/top 10
Agi Keramidas 13:48
Until next time, stand out don't fit in!