The only right answer is: yes. Every human being is a natural leader. Simply because we all have a life to lead. And that's the essence of leadership. How you are leading your life determines the quality of your leadership. It also determines how you further express your leadership, in any context - including in your work life, in the work space, in a position or role. It starts with you and how you are leading your life. This is what it means to be an authentic leader. Authentic because there is only one you.

In order to fulfil your potential as an authentic leader in life, you have to be aware of what personal development really means. Don't get me wrong, personal development has nothing to do with changing, growing and reaching some place in the future of being some new or other version of you. Personal development means becoming more you. Who you really are. Expanding your awareness of who you are. Understanding why you are here - your purpose. Having clarity about what your passion is. And therefore taking steps on your path in life to express this passion and share it with the world around you.

The Dutch word for development beautifully shows this meaning. If we would translate the Dutch word "ontwikkelen" literally, it means taking off the layers. You are born as who you truly are, an awareness, in life searching to express itself in the physical realm - from birth till death. In our first years in life we are exploring the physical world around us, and that's how layers are put on to us, one by one. We all have or at least have had layers that are covering up who we really are. Once ready for your personal development journey - the journey of taking off the layers starts. Your journey of becoming you.

My own personal development journey started in 2011. In less than a year since I became a politician, elected as a Member of the Dutch Parliament, I was energy drained. For the first time in my life I was living in a world that didn't naturally fit me and was a mismatch with who I truly am. It was the most painful but at the same time most powerful - and now even the most precious moment - of my life. In losing myself, the journey started of going back to myself. Understanding who I am, expanding my awareness, understanding why I am here in life and having crystal clear what my passion is: dialogue - human connection. So yes, sometimes a severe lack of human connection - unfortunately, that's politics - is the best entrance to find the path to human connection. Now I am breathing dialogue as oxygen in my daily life.

As a natural leader you find yourself claiming your authentic power. This means whatever happens in life, you always see what you have gained or learned from it. You understand there is no need to blame anyone or any situation. Because you understand that the minute you don’t own what happens in life, is the minute you give away your power. When I left the political arena a lot of people could not understand this at all. They didn't only want me to talk, but even when I did share my story, they also could not receive my words that came straight from my authenticity. My short read Listen Think Speak was understood by a few. Many could only grasp my story of leaving the Dutch parliament, only after sharing it in a 6 pages interview in HP De Tijd a Dutch magazine, in which the journalist invited me to try to express my words in a language that the majority of people do understand: the words of blame.

Another example of what it means to claim your natural leadership in life, you start realising that any goal you set in life is (easily) achievable and as a result you gain the insight that the journey towards your goals is as much and even of more importance than the goals themselves. I believe that's mastery of life. When you start living from this place of life is a journey and the journey is all you have. You find joy, peace and freedom because there's no need for any now in your life to be different. Some people call this living from a place of acceptance or surrender. I call it understanding life, which leads to mastery of life.

How about you? What does mastery of life means to you? Are you a natural leader? Do you know who you (truly) are? What your purpose is? Are you sharing your passion with the world around you? Leave me a message in the comment section below, I’d love to hear from you.

- W.