See Our Award Winners Here!

Our JANEY LOVES 2016 Platinum Award winners are announced!

 

carrie-symprove-kotoha

VIEW OUR AWARD WINNERS HERE

 

WATCH OUR LIVESTREAM HERE!

 

A huge thank you to our sponsors of the 2016 Platinum Awards:

2016-platinum-awards-sp3

AEOS (Active Energised Organic Skincare)

Viridian

UK Health Radio

The Taymount Clinic

AuthorCraft

Health Triangle Magazine

And to our fabulous judges…

2016-judges_edited-6

The Top 25 In This Year’s ‘Who’s Who in Natural Beauty’ – I Made It!

I’ve been lucky enough to have been in the number one spot three years in a row now and this year I’ve slipped down just a bit, but thank you SO much to those who voted for me, some huge congratulations to the winners and I’m super thrilled that Jayn Sterland MD of one of my favourite companies Weleda is topping the bill this year.

The hotlist – voted for by the natural and organic beauty industry is a snapshot of the leading personalities driving the newest trends and best products on the natural and organic market.

Here’s the 2016 top 25 personalities:

1. Jayn Sterland – Weleda
2. Sonia White – Lovelula
3. Luke & Kirstie Sherrif – Pinks Boutique
4. Kim & Alexander Barani – Kinetic Enterprises
5. Graeme Hume – Pravera
6. Ben Wigley – Big Green Smile
7. Tabitha James Kraan – Tabitha James Kraan
8. Sarah Brown – Pai Skincare
9. Francesca Morgante – NATRUE
10. Dr Cristina Llamas-Rey – Naturisimo
11. Fiona Konarides – Beauty Shortlist
12. Janey Lee Grace – broadcaster & journalist
13. Catkin Wemyss-Bodmer – BRYT Skincare
14. Noelle O’Connor – TanOrganic
15. Imelda Burke – Content Beauty
16. Kate Humble – Humble Beauty / broadcaster
17. Amber Felce – AmbersBeautyTalk.com
18. Jo Chidley – Beauty Kitchen
19. Dr Mariano Spiezia – Inlight Organic Skincare
20. Michell Thew – Cruelty Free International
21. Lauren Bartley – Soil Association
22. Rebecca Goodyear – Biteablebeauty.com
23. Sarah Stacey – author and editor
24. Lorraine Dallmeier – Formula Botanica
25. Sascha Layne – Freshious Life & Beauty

 

I’m absolutely thrilled to be part of bringing great natural beauty products into the mainstream.

The Natural Beauty Retail Awards 2016

I love to see natural beauty products being made more available to a wider market and Waitrose, Debenhams, Holland & Barrett, LoveLula, Beauty Kitchen, and Amaranth have all been recognised in the Natural Beauty Retail Awards which highlights the valuable contributions and support of retailers. These Awards celebrate the industry’s dedication and innovations in offering their customers a great retail experience, at the same time as promoting natural and organic beauty for all.

The Natural Beauty Retail Awards 2016 winners are:

Best Supermarket – Waitrose

Best Chain Store – Holland & Barrett

Best Department Store – Debenhams

Best Online Retailer – Lovelula

Best Branded Store – Beauty Kitchen

Best Independent Retailer – Amaranth

 

Formerly The Natural Beauty Yearbook, Natural Beauty News is the definitive trade publication for the natural and organic beauty industry. It covers the best in seasonal trends whilst also retaining the Yearbook’s most popular elements, such as Retailers Choice and the ‘Who’s Who’ in Natural Beauty.

For further information, please visit:

www.naturalbeautynews.co.uk

How Are Your Wheels Rolling?

Have you done a life audit lately?

If you’ve read any books on personal development you will be very familiar with the concept of assessing your life, checking in with your core values, your goals and intentions, and then checking where you are really at on a day to day basis.

I’m sure you know too about the concept of the wheel of life, if you draw a wheel and divide up the spokes into categories – relationships, work, financial, health, physical activity, family etc. then you can honestly say where you are on that spoke. What usually happens is that we feel we’re doing well in a few areas and not so well in others – hence why our ‘wheel’ – our life, doesn’t always roll along as smoothly as we would like.

It’s a really good indicator to look at the big picture and ask how aligned are you. On my workshops I ask people to really look at and assess their core values, it’s the classic exercise where they start by choosing twenty words from a long list that resonate with them, then they need to narrow down to ten and then five and finally the top three. At first it seems impossible because we want to be everything but eventually it’s possible usually to focus on the three values that feel most intrinsic to who we are.  From there, we can clearly see if we are putting our efforts in the right place!

Recently I’ve been reading The Compound Effect, read my blog post HERE. The author Darren Hardy spends a good chunk of the book talking about life assessment, but rather than suggest we mark ourselves between one and ten in each category, i.e. relationships and family, physical, business, financial, spiritual, he goes one step further and suggests we have subsections for each category.  So for example, under the heading Spiritual, you rate between one and five on a series of ‘sub- questions’ such as:

‘I consider myself a spiritual person’

‘I take at least twenty minutes a day to meditate and reflect on my life’

‘I study my spiritual beliefs daily’…and several more

Rating these questions brought on one of those light bulbs for me because I am so often caught up in business and minutia, I don’t think I’d been honest with myself until I’d looked at it and saw just how many things that I say are hugely important to me, are going by the wayside in the name of being too busy.

If I merely had to rate the ‘spirituality’ corner of my wheel I would have rated it about an eight, yet when I really answered those very pertinent questions, I came down to a measly four. 

As I went through each of the questions in the categories I had to be really honest with myself, I DO consider myself ‘spiritual’ but recently I have barely had time to go to the loo let alone carve out regular meditation time, and when I scored so low it was a bit of a wake-up call, as it’s high on my priorities.

In the ‘physical’ section of the wheel it was even more of a revelation, as someone who walks a lot, does regular yoga, Pilates, a fit-steps dance class (if you haven’t tried it DO!!), Nia dance whenever I can and the odd workout with weights when I remember, I usually score myself fairly high but in his life assessment breakdown questions, Darren throws in some curveballs…

Score yourself between one and five…

I do strength training at least 3x a week…(oops)

I do cardiovascular training at least 3x a week (nope)

I do stretching and yoga type exercises at least 3x a week (almost…)

And there was more…now of course all of his suggestions aren’t appropriate for everyone, but it is interesting how when you get down to the detail maybe there’s room for improvement, not in order to meet anyone else’s standards, only your own.

I’m not saying any of this to further beat myself up for what I’m not achieving – I’m self-made ‘imperfectly natural’ – remember – but it did make me question how I spend my time and focus.

So I’d urge you to do your own new wheel of life, include some pertinent sub questions, and be honest, cut yourself some slack though too, as a girlfriend said to me recently ..be gentle with yourself.

Little Things Mean a Lot, (Small Change, Big Difference)

I’m a sucker for a good personal development book, I’m guessing you are too, I’m literally that person who revels in ‘shelf-development’ and I could probably donate my collection to the British Museum and make an impact, the thing is how much do we really take action on the great tips and advice we read?

There’s no doubt that books are awesome value, people (just like you) who have put potentially thousands of hours into honing their ideas and their craft to present it to you for a mere ten or so quid.

As a writer of motivational stuff, a Hay House author, and someone who runs workshops encouraging people to write their book, take the first steps…et al, you’d think I might have reached a point where I felt I didn’t need the ‘classic’ books around success and wellbeing.  I’m well versed in the classics from Napoleon Hill through Scott Peck, to Hay House hero’s Dr David Hamilton, Pam Griers, Cheryl Richardson et al, not to mention Wayne Dyer.  However, I came across an unassuming paperback at an event recently and something about it resonated. ‘The Compound Effect, Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success’ is by Darren Hardy, the publisher of Success Magazine, it’s been a New York Times best seller and the foreword is written by none other than Anthony Robbins, a must for the library of course, but something about this book actually made me want to read it, properly.  Despite the author being American (and I doff my cap here to my US counterparts across the pond) there was none of the pious ‘get rich quick’ strive for success at all costs’ kind of dialogue, this is one of the most realistic down to earth books about success I have ever read.

Habits

The basic premise is that it’s not the ‘life changing’ massive 360 degree changes that sometimes come along to rock our world that shape most of us (though of course that might be the case) – rather it’s the little things we do (or don’t do) every single day, the small changes that when ‘compounded’ over time make a massive difference. Darren blows away the theory that only ‘lucky people’ are successful, that you have to be ‘naturally’ talented to succeed, instead he drills in the old fashioned traits of hard work, resilience, practice, yes he even goes as far as to say the path to becoming successful can be downright boring, lonely and unsexy.  In our quick fix society we aren’t often used to hearing that and I found it hugely refreshing to read a multi billionaire tell me there is no quick fix.  You, like me, may be exhausted by the stream of emails you get from ‘million dollar marketers’ promising you instant success overnight if you just pay them that six figure sum.

Darren says there is a formula for getting lucky:

Preparation (personal growth) +

Attitude (belief / mindset) +

Opportunity (a good thing comes your way) +

Action (doing something about it) =

Luck

The book is full of his own tales of growing up with a sergeant major style father who cut him no slack but made him the disciplined man he is today, he reminds us of the importance of tracking how we spend our time, analysing our thoughts, practising gratitude (a big one) being aware of our own habits and who is controlling who. I love his suggestion of taking each of your ‘vices’ – be it wine, coffee, chocolate and stopping that habit for 21 days to check that it isn’t controlling you.  He suggests taking a long hard look at your habits, whether that be eating too much, procrastinating over a project you know you need to get started (how many of my clients tell me they know they MUST write their book…, avoiding conflict even though you know you need to ditch toxic relationships in your life and allowing fear to take hold (so that you hold back rather than taking the first steps to starting your business or fulfilling your dreams).  We all think we need huge amounts of ‘willpower’ to change our habits, but as anyone who has ever tried to lose a considerable amount of weight just by giving up the extra calories will know, willpower doesn’t work, what we need is ‘why-power’ – if you want to make significant improvements in your life you have to have a ‘why’.

When I work with heart centred businesses this is usually the core of the problem, many of the people I work with are therapists or practitioners, and they are doing the work they are doing because they want to make a difference, they want to bring light, healing transformation, whatever it might be, but they are not always quite ready to stand in the spotlight and claim their own ‘USP’ their YOU-nique brilliance.  ‘Don’t look at me…look at EFT…or aromatherapy…they say, but we have to see you, and you have to be willing to stand up and be counted. Be visible. A great number of people are nervous of speaking in public, having their photograph at the top of their website, doing a live stream on Facebook, but it’s true that people do business with those they like know and trust, so in order to sense if they can like you they need to see you!

The good news is you don’t need to be transformed overnight from a shy wallflower to Beyonce, as this book shows it’s the compound effect that matters, it’s the little things you do every day. You could start by keeping a notebook and every day write in it 3 things you are grateful for and at least one thing you are proud of about yourself – take note this doesn’t have to be about your work, practice in front of a mirror or a supportive friend, introducing yourself and your work, till you feel confident enough to stand up at a networking event and make your pitch.

The key is to be aware of what you want, what’s currently holding you back and know you can change.  Pay attention to it every day and the ‘compound effect’ means that over time…the little actions add up and you will be on course to achieve your success – no gimmicks, no spin, no quick fix. Old fashioned hard work, knowing what you want and going for it, bit by bit…and then some.

The Compound Effect

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy – Da Capo Press

powervisioning500

If you’d like help defining your USP and what it is you really want, I offer a Power Visioning Call strategy session. Spend 60 mins of ’1 to 1′ with me to get the clarity you need to move you and your business forward.

Check out the testimonials here and see what it can do for you>>