A Little About Melanie Windle
Hello! Let me introduce myself. I’m Melanie Windle and I live in Manchester in the UK. I want to tell you a little about my journey to this stage in my life.
The Launch…
I started out my working life in the early eighties doing a jumble of jobs to try to make ends meet. One of them was as a part time youth worker. I was so lucky. I had accidentally stumbled upon probably the most inspiring group of youth workers you could meet. They weren’t just keeping young people off the streets: they were changing attitudes, behaviours and ultimately the lives of these vulnerable youngsters. I was hooked! I knew now exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to be involved in helping people achieve their potential.
The Focus…
So I trained as a Youth and Community Worker and worked with hundreds of young people, helping them with interpersonal and practical skills to enable them to feel empowered to make decisions that would affect their own lives. Soon I was working in training Personal Development with all ages. (I even had a spell working in personal development overseas, but that was a disaster – more about that another time!) Whether it was a 14 year old at the start of their journey; a school/college leaver starting work; an employee; a manager or a Board member at executive level, it really all boiled down to three key themes.
- Can you manage yourself?
- Are you good at being managed by others?
- Can you manage others?
I was writing and delivering courses which addressed each of these needs and was loving watching the penny drop and people, who’d never thought about personal development before, start to notice and change their attitudes and actions. Best of all, they were being bowled over at how simple it is to literally change their life experience. What they thought was in the hands of others, they now realised they had control over.
The Passion…
One of my favourite courses I run is Assertiveness. In fact, I think being assertive is the core to the success of each of those three strands. People often think assertiveness is all about being pushy and getting your own way. How wrong! The short definition is ‘whatever you say or do is not at the expense of others nor at the expense of yourself’. So you are always aware of your words and actions and the effects on others and yourself. Sounds ridiculously simple but when you actually show people how to achieve that in their daily lives, the results blow them away.
The Belief…
So how did I get here on the internet, writing this? Well, I’ve now been a freelance Personal Development Trainer since 1995 and have trained thousands of people from private businesses, public sector and voluntary organisations in all sorts of personal and interpersonal skills: from customer service to teambuilding; from personal confidence to leadership; from time management to management coaching. And it has been a privilege to enable many of these to achieve much more than they thought possible. I realise that sounds arrogant, but I just want to show that I am passionate about the potential a person can reach.
I believe that we never stop learning. In fact, I regard that as the fundamental driver through our lives. Our drive to improve and change. Have you ever reached a goal you set yourself, thinking, ‘when I get there, that will be it – I will be exactly where I want to be’ and then discovering that very soon you’re onto the next thing? Some people think that’s a bad ‘unsatisfied’ way to be. I think that desire is a life force, the momentum that propels us as individuals and us as humans forward. Have you ever wondered why, when someone has made an eye-watering amount of money in their lives, they don’t just put their feet up and relax? Some do, I know, but many more just want to learn and move to the next thing. Their delight is in the journey of change. The destination is a by-product. (Though eye-watering amounts of money would be a pretty nice by-product, I know!)
That is the joy of the kind of work I am involved in because, even though it is my role to develop and train others, I get to learn and grow. I always gain some new insight or idea every time I train from everyone I meet. It is wonderful having a career based on the development of others where I can develop myself as well and get paid for it!
When I’m not training others, I am constantly learning and developing myself. Whether it is researching a topic; completing a course; attending seminars and workshops or listening to a CD in the car of someone who inspires me, I am continually developing. It would be hypocritical of myself to train others and expect their commitment if I did not expect the same from myself. (Ok - not 24/7. That would be a touch obsessive. I also get to walk the dog, tend the garden, carve wood, hike in the countryside…but you know what I mean!)
So, I expect you’ve got the picture by now. Personal Development is really important to me, for me, as well as for my work. I want to be as fully resourced as possible to meet whatever challenges come along.
So that kind of explains the point I’ve come to and why I’m here now.
The Goal…
I started thinking – wouldn’t it be great if I could make my training courses into products that meant that people could access them at home. The internet was the obvious route. However, I realised pretty quickly that I knew absolutely nothing about how I would get my products out to people. So I started teaching myself internet marketing. What a learning curve! Suddenly I was in a new world with a new language. I discovered affiliate marketing, realising that if I learnt to sell other people’s products, I would know how to sell my own. At first I was overwhelmed by all the different people out there trying to sell you their methods, courses etc of how to do it. I had to develop a filter pretty fast at the same time as get familiar with all the technical jargon and systems. Bit of a minefield! I was becoming like one of those red-eyed teenagers who has gone pale and pasty through endless staring at a screen. Again and again though, in amongst this barrage of information, I kept coming across yourinternetbuddies.com. They were like a clear, calm sea of knowledge and skills that was delivered in a way that was compatible with my personal development philosophy.
Suddenly, a sense of feeling completely overwhelmed by information overload gave way to clarity, focus and a certainty of the direction I needed to go in. With their help, I’m on a journey that I’m looking forward to sharing with you.
Melanie
