This month's Coach in the Spotlight is Mike Shervington OBE. Mike's life coaching journey takes place in Sydney, Australia, therefore requiring dedication and lots of late nights & early mornings! Mike is an ex-military Para and a Coaching Academy-qualified life coach who emigrated from the UK to Australia, working in commercial property before becoming a performance coach for the Royal Australian Navy. But we'll hand over to Mike to tell you more!
The short answer? My running club in Sydney. The slightly longer one? Having recently left the Army, the dawning and then sudden realisation of 2 things – I’m happiest when I’m helping people, and ‘coaching’ was the perfect vehicle for that. And fate would have it that I first saw the dawn while running alongside a mate who told me a life coach helped him stay motivated. So in December 2020 I found The Coaching Academy, was thrilled to be able to use the my Army educational credits (via ELCAS and SFEDI), and started in January 2021.
Immeasurably, and on so many levels. I’ve always been intrinsically motivated and ruminate often (too often!) about finding that purpose after 23 high-octane years in the Paras. We’d started a totally new life in Australia, me as a commercial property manager, new school and life in Sydney, and I soon found myself asking ‘is this it?’
Fast-forward to my first Accelerator with The Coaching Academy and without a moment’s hesitation I can state the next 12 months were the most absorbing, fulfilling and neuron-fizzing educational experience of my life. I just wish I’d learned this stuff at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst 27 years ago; I’d have been a better leader and person if I had.
Not just a busy life but a busy life on the other side of the planet. I took a few months to organise myself and begin the course, after which my OCD and Army discipline took over! I added trains and buses to my travel routine so I could read, watch and listen. Car journeys had the family groaning!
So as not to wake them, early mornings and late nights spent in Zooming in from the garage. And stepping right into that stretch zone by asking fledgling friends at the surf club if they’d be practice clients. Thank heavens for the one TCA student in Hong Kong. And despite bush fires and major floods, I cracked it in about 12 months.
Discovering stuff myself, under the The Coaching Academy’s mantra of ‘teaching people how to fish’. I’m now totally fascinated by ego, the brain, and how values and beliefs pull our strings.
Coaching is now my life, to the extent I left my well-paid commercial property job in Sydney and got a less-well-paid job as a performance coach for the Royal Australian Navy. So now I coach every day, using GROW, DISC and the TCA’s 101 Coaching Qs on my desk! All of this gives me every opportunity to become the best coach I can be.
3 areas. In the immediate, I’m focusing on confidence and positive psychology coaching; there’s far too much negativity these days. Second, understanding the brain. I think it’s the most neglected organ in our bodies; it sits in total darkness but drives everything we do. And thirdly, more visionary, is coupling the conviction that people want to live longer, happier and more fulfilling lives, to the rapidly burgeoning coaching sector here in Australasia.
There are 3 quotes from history that pump my tyres and which may help inflate others’. Eleanor Roosevelt’s ‘the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others’; Abraham Lincoln’s ‘discipline is being able to choose between what you want now and what you want most’; and Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘Believe you can and you’re halfway there’. Hence the name of my coaching company – Believe You Can Coaching!
You get out what you put in so throw yourself into everything The Coaching Academy offers. Raise that hand during Accelerators; share honestly your progress with your fellow students; and seek answers from the TCA’s peerless coaches and support staff; they are exceptional. Find some experienced coaches to follow. Finally, lean on and support those people you bond with throughout the journey; they’ll become real friends and will help you every step of the climb. And that summit is totally exhilarating, if ever you get there!
Thank you so much Mike for sharing your life coaching journey with us!
Feeling inspired by Mike's journey? Then why not join us for our free Introduction to Life Coaching webinar? With four webinars a week, there's sure to be a date to suit you!
Alternatively, if you're already qualified as a life coach, our wide range of coaching training events, webinars and courses will enable you to upskill in your career or grow your coaching business – take a look at what's coming up in our events calendar.
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