As I progressed through life if I wasn't playing a sport out in nature, I was sat looking at a wonderful view, walking the coast and moor, interacting with the wildlife all around me, using a wave to power me towards a beach, or the wind to carry me across the ocean. And if I wasn't outside, then I was inside watching a nature program studying the animals on different continents and how their lives unfolded.

As regards to my inner nature I've always had a sense as to what really mattered to me at my very core and the path that was ultimately right for me, but I often let myself be swayed by others opinion as to where I should be heading next, it then took me quite a while to get back to where I wanted to go in the first place.

I experienced a lot of controlling and manipulative behaviour in both my personal and professional life throughout the first portion of my existence where I allowed others to dictate what purpose I pursued and what rules I lived under, I was bullied extensively.

Throughout my career I have found it difficult to find companies, across a diverse amount of industries, (textile design, estate agency, accountancy, horse racing and graphic design) that stood for anything other than to solely maximise profits for those within the higher echelons of the company, there was no greater purpose to my work which left me feeling very unhappy and ultimately demotivated.

The pattern remained the same for the first 33 years of my life, where I was not able to truly live my life more true to my nature. It was only then that I thought there had to be another way, but as I was always getting the same answer from family and friends, I did not know where to find it.

Exasperated in late 2003, I sought counseling for the first time. It was the best thing I ever did, I was right, there was indeed another more positive way to living my life and the answer lay within me all along, in my true nature, it just had to be teased out and supported.

Further insights came through life coaching and psychotherapy before slowly the realisation dawned on me that I too had these coaching and counselling skills in abundance. I decided to seek out various short courses and started to teach myself the necessary skills in order to help others in the same way I was being helped too.

Discovering the work of Neil Crofts in 2006 and taking my own 'Walk of Life' out in nature at the time further confirmed my calling, as has my involvement with the Transition Town movement, my CSR work with PL:21, helping out at Embercombe, reading the books of Bill Plotkin, Joseph Campbell, David Richo and Mac Macartney around the subjects of nature and the human psyche.

Further messages came through taking a year out to teach sailing, and trying to run a business on my return whilst encountering both economic and environmental crisis at the same time. Finally the last pieces in the puzzle started to drop into place as I came into contact with some timely messages through the very nature programmes I had watched many years previously. Although this time more focussed on the habitat loss and species decline caused by an ever expanding human population, climate change and our perpetual growth model.

My own authentic leadership involves helping as many people as I can to live their life more true to their nature both inner and outer. With all of my skill set in whatever way I can.