Sheila Vijeyarasa: Look, it's so important to get ahead in your career by having, I call it, a soul tribe around you. And I have a chapter in my book called soul tribes. This is a group of people around you that a visionary like you think in terms of great possibility. They have great self-belief, and they're also willing to support you; it's so important that you consistently find people around you that are having what I call the same vibration as you.

And as you ascend in the corporate world, there's a very good chance your vibration is lifting. When I say vibration, your energy, who you are in the world, you're starting to become a bigger person. And you're wanting to be seen by more people and inspiring more and leading more people. And to do that, you're going to need a group of people around you that's going to inspire you to be the best version of yourself. So finding your soul tribe to inspire you is essential.

The second important factor is finding an incredible mentor, someone who's walked in your shoes, someone who can relate to your challenges, and someone's going to be there week in and week out. And a mentor, a coach, even a spiritual teacher (I'm an alchemist of all three modalities) is going to help you lift your consciousness, they're going to help you deal with crisis that will come up in your career, and help you gracefully move through the crisis and grow in your wisdom. 

Read more: How to live your truth: spiritual guidance for corporate leaders

 
You need a coach to build emotional resilience and just to also have fun with you know, a coach, someone's going to help you bring play and laughter into your life to balance out you know, quite often when we're in the corporate world, we take ourselves very seriously, I think a coach is going to really ensure that you're I'm staying true to having balance in your life.

And the third thing is never stop evolving and learning. I thought being a CFO was making it to the top, you know, I've some sort of lighter. And years later, I've written a book, I've got a publishing deal. And I'm now training to be a motivational and keynote speaker.

So for me, the roads endless there isn't there isn't a destination, I'm getting to, I'm forever curious about the skills that I want to gain, about people that inspire me and what skills they have that I can learn from the team underneath, you are only going to be able to grow as far as a leader. So as a leader, it's your responsibility to continue to expand your knowledge, your wisdom, your emotional intelligence, and your spiritual intelligence.

I never would have made it to the C suite and really had the kind of confidence to sit at a board level without the MBA. I was always ambitious, I always had a vision to become a finance director or a CEO of a large company. However, the MBA just gave me the absolute confidence and self-belief. I became really versed in strategy and you can't sit at the board level if you're still functional, I had to go beyond the function of finance and really sit with empathy, with the other roles around me, really have a vision, a greater vision for the company I was leading. And also I started to understand the importance to be seen as a leader not just to act as a leader. The MBA just gave me so many different skills and tools that I just didn't have beforehand. And so you know, I proudly sat at board level and I noticed the MBA that allowed for that to happen.

Sheila Vijeyarasa is the founder of Empowering Intuition and teaches executives how to connect to their deeper selves through intuition, mindfulness, and wellbeing techniques. She is also the author of Brave: Courageously live your truth, which explores how corporates can embrace their true calling. For more information read the full article How to live your truth: spiritual guidance for corporate leaders.