Mentor Series - Katy Mason, There is Always Another Way

Hi, I am Katy Mason, a Corporate Executive Coach and owner of Anotherway Coaching and Training Solutions, my coaching niche is “Challenging Coaching” which has taught me to be both my own and other's “Loving boot”.

I chose this niche as when I was in the Corporate arena, I realised I was often seen as being rather “pink and fluffy” in my leadership style and I realised that I wasn’t great at challenging myself or others.  The lack of this skill was impacting both my confidence and held me back from achieving my own dreams.  Then came my epiphany, first I needed to take a good look at myself in order to create some better beliefs to support me to achieve my dream goals.

My passion for coaching came when I gained my 1st coaching role in 2000, and since then I have been in love with coaching. In 2011, I signed up to study for my Life Coaching Diploma and Corporate Executive Coaching diplomas with The Coaching Academy. I loved learning all the coaching techniques and models and made some lifelong friends along the way. In 2013 following plenty of commitment,  another one of my dreams was realised when I gained distinction grades for both diplomas.

In 2013, I achieved my dream goal of setting up my own coaching business.

 Still needing many more new skills, the priority being to be able to challenge successfully, I started looking for the right mentors to help me successfully challenge myself and others.  In 2012, I came across the brilliant work of Dr John Blakey and Ian Day “Challenging Coaching”.  Since then it's been an unbelievable journey as they are both now great mentors to me and I am proud to work as an associate coach, delivering Challenging Coaching Programmes and supporting executives to achieve their courageous goals.

In 2017 I received an email from TCA, asking if anyone was interested in volunteering to be a mentor to students training at TCA. I jumped at this opportunity as I love giving back to others and knew that I had the knowledge, skills and behaviours to do this role.  I applied and was lucky to be accepted. Following training, I started giving 1 hour a week and after a few years of volunteering, in April 2021, I achieved my goal of  100 hours of voluntary mentoring for TCA students! I got my certification of recognition to prove it and it has now been proudly added to my other TCA certifications.

“I believe that givers gain” and 100 hours of mentoring, is a courageous goal to achieve, especially whilst running my own business and continuing with my own CPD.  However, this opportunity was rewarding and I believe it led me to more great opportunities as I continued researching more about mentoring. Below are a couple of these:

 I designed and delivered a mentoring programme for a University, this involved developing academic leaders to become great mentors and training the mentees to understand what was required of them in order to get the best from a mentoring relationship. Most recently I have had the privilege to design and deliver a CMI Level 3 Coaching and Mentoring Qualification for one of my clients, which I have just finished delivering and I am now excited about reading the delegates assignments when they submit them in September.  I have had lots of coaches coming back for more mentoring sessions with me and made some great LinkedIn connections. Plus, I have received wonderful testimonials from coaches and here is one of them.

“Katy is a superb mentor. Her ability to quickly cut to the heart of any matter and offer up practical insightful suggestions have been so incredibly useful. Katy has empowered me to recognise my strengths and has guided me with helpful suggestions- championing me all the way! I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Katy to any of my colleagues who were looking for an outstanding mentor.” Sarah

For this individual to have been able to recognise her own strengths and gain the self-belief to set up her own coaching business fills me with joy and highlights the power of my gifts to my mentees, which results in me wanting to do it more.

Attending the Introduction to Life Coaching course with TCA highlighted that I needed to have more faith in my own ability, and this has certainly happened. Martin Luther King Jnr quoted “take the 1st step in faith, you don’t have to see the whole staircase”.

Today, I live my life consciously and creatively I know that no matter what happens I need to be brave because “there is always another way”!