 Welcome back, this is Y254 and our topic of discussion is personal development that is in case you are just joining us. And now to my next question Angela, how do you understand your identity and how do you develop it? Well there are many ways of developing yourself and the first one is being aware that you need it. And when you are aware that you need it you need to go back to the basics of life. Basics of life are how you are brought up. If you are brought up in a church you need to just look at the things that you were taught when you were young and try to embrace those things. Because most of the times we kind of ignore or maybe not ignore but we put them aside the things that we were taught that were meaningful in our lives and try to poison ourselves with whatever now the society is pushing us to. So you need to look at it like an individual and see what it is that you can do to change your life. And it's all about changing behaviors and having the right attitudes. So once you discover that you can now start working on yourself. Having the right attitudes and the right behaviors that will lead you now to achieving what you want. Yeah well and now maybe as we talk on that I understand you hold a lot of training and mentorship so in personal development. And what are some of the challenges that you personally faced and what are the situations or experiences you have had from people who really want to improve themselves? Some of these challenges are financial because some of the coaches we have in Kenya are a bit unaffordable to many. But if you want to develop yourself you must have a budget for it. You must have a way of working towards it. So it's like learning going to school to get a skill. You have to pay for it of course. But if you are not able to then I think there are ways of working towards those things. There are so many forums that are open for free and even online that you can learn. If you cannot access internet I think you can talk to someone who is of a higher level than you, a mentor. Mentors really work so well and they help us move to the next level. And everyone should have a mentor. I once was watching an opera and she said she has four mentors and I asked myself if me, Angela, I have maybe one mentor and opera has four with what she has achieved. What am I doing with my life really? So we need to embrace the fact that we need mentors. We look up to others who can help because people are out there to help others and we just need to be open and get out and go and get them because they will help. Okay, so let's get to Yvonne a bit about what difference does it make in a person's life. First shine light on the importance of self-development and how will it help me if I decide to take on help improving myself as opposed if I just decide to stay like that. First of all, knowledge of personal development is very key because immediately you know about personal development like there is need for your personal development. You'll actually grow one because you'll understand yourself. You'll be able to know that what can make you sad, what can make you happy, how are you able to relate to the people. You see you've understood yourself and what you want so you are in a position like to know what is it that I want. And immediately you are cautious about personal development. You'll be in a position to relate to the people. You'll be in a position to follow your goals to define your values and you'll understand yourself more because like there is nothing you do that can prosper without you understanding yourself. You have to understand yourself first for it to be in a position to know that when I do this thing it is going to lead to negative consequences. When I do this it is going to have some positive consequences. So first you have to understand yourself, have a private conversation with yourself, talk to yourself. It's not necessarily talking to any other person but then the first conversation is talking to yourself. Then as she's just put it that have mentors. When you have mentors like those are the only people that you'll approach that are priceless. You will not pay them anything because when you have mentors they are usually priceless. And the only reward that you can give them or the price that you'll give them or any money that you'll give them is only by your success. If you succeed your mentors will be very happy. And I'm sure if you succeed everybody will be happy. So the first step is understanding yourself. And that understanding yourself is what it is now the journey you are starting of personal development. Immediately you start the journey of personal development. That is how you're going to identify your values, you're going to define your purpose, you know your purpose and you'll pursue your purpose. And it will actually lead to your success in life because you'll not have a lot of challenges. When you have challenges you'll know how to tackle them because challenges are inevitable. They always come but then when you are you are cautious about yourself and you know yourself and you understand yourself very well. You'll be in a position to tackle all the challenges that will come forth. Yeah as well as minimizing your weaknesses. Exactly. Well talking about validation and acceptance by family and society. Do you think as we groom our young kids maybe the young daughters. Do you think as parents do enough to help on this topic on self development. That is maybe you have a girl. What do you think the impact is? I don't think the current parent is doing what they are supposed to be doing. Teaching your child to know who they are and their value and their space in the society and how they are supposed to treat each other. How they are supposed to react to issues. So it comes from us as parents not just the teachers and most of the times we leave it to the teachers which is not good. Because the child will trust the parent first before they can trust anyone else. So I think currently what we have our parents current parents are not really doing as much as they are supposed to be doing. Maybe as time goes by people as we speak about it more and more people are going to embrace it and work on it because it's very important from the young age. Well so I can imagine well what are some of the things that parents can do. I imagine a friend told me it's important to always tell your girl child that they are beautiful and to remind them over and over. It's important to approve their ideas even if you know to just give confidence in that. So yeah talk about that. The bigger percentage of what the children learn is by watching us by what they see from us and the smaller percentage is what we tell them. So we need to lead by example by even showing them who we are and showing them what we are achieving by knowing who we are. And we need also to encourage them to learn their skills to discover them, be close to your children and learn and know who they are before they even grow and even go to the teachers. So it's our responsibility to train them. So Yvonne you are a student leader and I'm sure you've had a chance of interacting with very many people. What would you say is their state in terms of how is it seen? How can you tell that this one is confident? How is it seen? Actually you see this one I think I can drive it through. I can use dressing mode. Like you see we ladies dressing really speaks a lot about us. When you see a lady in heels and very high heels and is very confident about herself. Like you see this lady has already identified herself. She's comfortable in the heels but then you find another one she's comfortable in flat shoes. You see she's very comfortable in flat shoes. So immediately you identify yourself. That person sometimes myself I wear high heels and then there are others that approach me and tell me I'll never put on high heels. Then I'm like why? Then somebody else tells them they tell me that you know high heels you guys talk about high heels and you talk about confidence then you're like this because high heels gives you confidence then I'm like no that is not the way to go. Because high heels adds on your confidence. When you've already identified yourself you are in a position to do the high heels. But then there is no problem with you doing the low shoes because they are what gives you your worth. They are what you are like you identified yourself with those flat shoes so you are comfortable in them. So you don't have to fix yourself with the heels when you know you will not be comfortable in it. But then when somebody is confident they are in a position to speak out. Whenever they see a problem they'll actually speak about the mistake. Whenever you find me and you know this is wrong you'll just tell me this is wrong. And if this is right this is right. That is the definition of somebody who is confident and who has identified herself because they'll not keep quiet and watch. They'll be on the watch out and tell you this is wrong and this is right and they'll always speak out. Yes then I imagine that also helps minimize peer pressure and influence from their other mates. Because somebody who does not speak that is now the birth of depression. You see those people who don't speak up they are not in a position to tell us when they have a problem. And that somebody dies truly you start dying slowly inside that is the birth of depression. Well now even on that you can also give us your final thoughts on this topic as we wind up. About personal development I actually recommend people to surround themselves with mentors. You can have as many mentors as possible based on the fact that to go for the transformational classes they are very expensive. Now the only way you can approach the personal development way is surrounding yourself with mentors because mentors are priceless. They'll not ask you for even a single coin. They are priceless. And the only reward that they want is seeing you having tremendous success. Whenever you succeed the mentors you've already paid your mentors. So let's surround ourselves with mentors and you will actually find yourself like you've already grown. You are personally developed. You are strong. You are confident. You have strong self esteem. You'll be in a position to speak out and watch out and be on the lookout. Well thank you so much Yvonne. Angela your final comments as we wind up for comments thoughts. I want to leave you with something that I read somewhere that said many people die at 25 and they are buried at 70. And this is because after 25 that is after maybe college or university they stop learning themselves. They stop improving themselves and we need to keep on improving ourselves. You get a job and you settle but you need to keep on learning your environment. You keep on learning who you are learning because you keep on changing as times keep on changing as you keep on aging. So you have to take the initiative to keep on learning yourself and learning your environment in and putting in more info about yourself. That is all self awareness. I mean personal development is all about. It doesn't stop at a certain age. Neither does it start at a certain age. It is a lifelong process that we all have to embrace. We keep doing it every day. So well thank you so much for that. And with that we will have to wind up. We would have wanted to continue with a discussion for a whole hour but time is not on our side. So in case you missed this discussion or you would like to visit it just go to our YouTube page that is at Y254 channel. You will find this and much more for you. So with that it's bye bye from us and keep tuning into Y254 for more amazing and useful vibes. Bye.