The author, an executive coach, has traveled the globe working for several top organizations that have included Amazon, Verizon Business, AT&T, British Telecom, and Reliance Communications. Her latest book distills a lifetime of learning and development to craft a manual for personal and executive growth.

Whether you’re a CEO or a grunt in the mail room, who you believe you are determines what you achieve. Steve Jobs understood this principle from his study of Zen Buddhism. By following its precept of “Beginner’s Mind”, he cut through the resistance to new ideas and his inventions became the cornerstone for the world’s first trillion-dollar company.

An extension of that concept means having the courage to accept “what is, is”, or being “accountable” for one’s results, positive or negative. In our personal and corporate lives, we are confronted with varied circumstances, and there is always a choice of how to perceive them: acceptance or resistance. Acceptance results in clear thinking and decisive action; resistance arises from repressed thinking or unconscious impulses. This leads to what the author calls a syndrome of deny-defend-deflect and disastrous decision-making.

Virginia Smith has acquired such insights from her corporate Learning and Leadership Development experience. It Was ME All Along also follows her spiritual journey that, like Steve Jobs, became an intricate part of her objective approach to life and business affairs. The ancient Greeks subscribed to the maxim “know thyself”, or self-awareness through self-reflection. In today’s hectic world, we often act or react too quickly, impulsed by subjective thinking. Smith provides an objective approach to cure personal and corporate self-indulgence.