We got a chance to catch up with 5 of our fantastic award-winners from 2017 & 2018 to ask them a few questions about their ongoing professional journey.
From building communities, to (virtually) embarking on worldwide speaking engagements and even building an online language school, these coaches are doing it all!
We love celebrating the amazing achievements of our coaching community and most importantly, we hope this inspires you, dear reader, to dream big and aim high with your goals.
Have you ever thought about the role coaching plays in your life? Perhaps it's a new career you're heading towards or perhaps it's something that completely changed your life.
To start, we wanted to hear how coaching impacted the lives of these award-winning coaches, these are some of their answers.
Rafael Pompeo: Coaching is a very important tool that helps me put my plans into action. When I have many ideas or issues to deal with at the same time, coaching helps me put them in the right place so I can move on with serenity.
Debra McAndrew: Coaching plays a daily part in my life, not just professionally but also in my personal life. I wish that I had trained years ago to have the knowledge, skills and understanding that I now have from the experience it would have been so beneficial.
Having worked in a training and advisory role for many years, coaching has given me another "string to my bow". Using powerful questioning skills, I can work better with my clients to empower and enable them to often make changes and break away from their normal strategies that have sometimes been hindering progress. I feel that I get the best from clients without undermining the existing skills that they have.
I have more skills to open up conversations, particularly when there is conflict or uncertainty. I can help myself and others to seek solutions, empowering and enabling which is probably the biggest reward for me, having trained as a coach.
Deborah Cundy: The tools & techniques I have gained since studying as a personal performance Coach and the CPD courses I have attended with TCA, are not only an instrumental part of my coaching business but have and continue to support me within my own personal development & growth mindset.
Ebonie Allard: I still coach most days in some way, whether it's my clients, my community or my team - I also mentor, make art, write books and courses and study. Coaching, asking good questions, helping people think differently and find their own answers is an integral part of everything I do and I am passionate about the integrity of coaching and the coaching industry.
Katie Stoddart: Ever since I joined The Coaching Academy, coaching has played a tremendous role in my life. After embarking on this journey, I quit my job as an engineer to work full time as a coach and have my own business. This was over three years ago and since then coaching has been what I live and breathe daily.
It is both my job and my passion. I have also been coached continuously during those years and this has impacted: my relationships, my health, my well-being, my business, and pretty much every single aspect of my life. As coaching & personal development go hand in hand, the ongoing learning and discovery through personal development books, courses, and training have also been hugely valuable. In one word: in my life: coaching has been and still is transformational.
Growth is part of our coaching DNA so we were curious to see how things have changed for this group of coaches since winning their respective awards. Here's what they had to say!
Katie Stoddart: After receiving my award a few years back, I decided to up my game: I took on greater challenges and changed the way I worked. I became more focused and committed to my coaching practice and to contribute to other business owners.
The award has also benefited my business as credibility and trust have increased, which means that initial contacts are easier to obtain. Overall I think it boosted my confidence, dedication and resilience.
Rafael Pompeo: Immensely! I went from being a private teacher and coach to being the creator and owner of an online school.
Deborah Cundy: Winning the award was such a privilege and its most definitely given me a great platform in terms of credibility and exposure
Ebonie Allard: I don't think that winning the award impacted my business, but it did make me feel seen and recognized, which is always wonderful.
Since I won the award I have continued to build my business and my brand and have found myself diversifying how I do business; including a lot more collaboration and community and a lot less 'personal brand' - What was Ebonie Allard, has become 'Misfit for Life' and with it a movement and community that I am part of and lead but am not solely responsible for.
Debra McAndrew: Where do I start! When I received my award for coaching within education at the end of 2018, I had just been through a rebranding exercise with my existing business, Early Years Advocacy.
I had worked for nearly 30 years within early years education initially running my own day nursery business, selling up and working in the Public Sector as an early years’ business development officer and then becoming an independent advisor/trainer. My intention was to continue with this work, with coaching enhancing my skill set, but also to expand my services outside of the sector. The timing was perfect and gave me a catalyst to further promote my business under the ‘trading as’ arm of ‘Strive’, appealing to a wider audience.
I had however been living with and caring for my Mum who has Alzheimer’s, for a year prior to this, and sadly, her condition deteriorated early in 2019, and I decided to put my business development on hold for a year.
The award, however, enabled me to raise my coaching profile during a time of juggling work with caring responsibilities. It was an easier and more flexible service offer than others that I had provided previously. It also gave me the extra confidence and credibility to continue to work at one of the most challenging times in my life.
Last but not least, we had to ask about the wonderful work that these coaches are working on at the moment and the powerful goals they have! Read on.
Ebonie Allard: Continuing to create a safe space for Misfits (people who are too creative, too innovative, too geeky, or 'just' too full of heart to clock in and clock out of a job and or life) to come discover who they really are beneath the camouflage, become Maven, empowered, embodied and fully self-expressed.
Debra McAndrew: The next step for my business is to consider the opportunities to work outside of early years. The pandemic has led me to develop new service offers and to provide these via Zoom. I will continue with this as well as face-to-face delivery which I enjoy most when this is safe and easy to provide.
My personal circumstances have also changed in more recent times, and my caring responsibilities have ceased, so I now feel that I am in a strong position to forge ahead under my new brand.
Deborah Cundy: I have always been passionate about supporting my local and wider community, working closely with charities and other organisations, with mental health and wellbeing at the top of everyone's agenda at the moment.
This is an area I am exploring and I am looking forward to working with organisations and individuals around this topic.
Rafael Pompeo: Keep on using coaching so I can better manage my school and make good partnerships so more and more people can benefit from my services.
Katie Stoddart: I have recently begun a speaking tour and looking at doing 42 speaking engagements over the next six months mostly online: this includes podcast interviews, masterminds, workshops and summits! Currently in the process of putting everything together to be an ICF coach.
I am finishing writing my book on 'Focus' - this is an exciting project as I love writing and have always wanted to publish a book! I am also launching my ˜The Focused Entrepreneur Academy" to build a community of entrepreneurs and support them with peak performance, energy & emotional management, focus & business growth.
These are my four main goals for my business. I am loving every single step of the journey!
Thank you to The Coaching Academy for being the start of this fantastic adventure!
Thank you to these 5 fantastic coaches for sharing more about their journey. We wish you the best of luck on your projects moving forward! In no particular order:
Rafael Pompeo - International Coach of the Year 2017
Deborah Cundy - Coaching for a Cause Award 2017
Katie Stoddart - Best Newcomer Award 2018
Debra McAndrew - Coaching within Education Award 2018
Ebonie Allard - International Coach of the Year 2018
If you would like to find out more about coaching and how it can change your life, just like it changed Deborah's, Rafael's, Katie's, Ebonie's, Debra's and many other's journeys in life, start by joining us for a free Introduction to Life Coaching.
The Coaching Academy was established in 1999, and is now the world's largest coaching school.
In that time we have trained over 14,000 people to become life coaches.
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