What brought you to coaching?

I became very interested in self development and read a great book by Fiona Harrold called “Be Your Own Life Coach” and I wanted to apply this way of working to parenting so I went off to re train as a Parent Coach from being a Deputy Head Teacher!

What were your original thoughts for applying the coaching?

I love learning and I was ready for a new challenge so I read the brochure from The Coaching Academy and came along to a one day event – and I was hooked !

What did you find most interesting to learn?

The art of asking great questions and allowing people the space and time to ponder them. I just love asking questions to help parents find their own answers.

What was the most rewarding part of the training/journey?

Learning new skills that transform other peoples lives quickly and easily

Which bits did you enjoy the most?

I just LOVED the NLP training and I went on to train with Paul Mckenna and Dr Richard Bandler to become a Master Practitioner and Trainer.

How did the qualification slot in with your current life?

Seamlessly !

What else did you have to consider whilst qualifying?

Being structured and disciplined to keep up with the units

Where are you now? How are you using your coaching skills?

I am an internationally recognised Parenting Expert, Broadcaster, Speaker and Author of the Amazon best selling books “Parenting Made Easy – How To Raise Happy Children” published by Random House & “Raising Happy Children for Dummies” one in the famous black and yellow series as well as author of the highly acclaimed Parenting Made Easy CDs.

I have just launched the 1st in my series of Parenting Made Easy apps for iPhones and iPads. I offer practical guidance for bringing up happy, confident, well behaved children from toddler to teen.

I regularly appear on the award winning flagship ITV show “This Morning”, BBC Breakfast and The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 and is the parenting expert for many BBC Radio Stations around the UK. I have a regular monthly parenting phone- in on BBC Radio Surrey & Sussex and my parenting articles are published all over the world.

What is your coaching niche and why did you choose it?

I am passionate about parenting and making a difference in the lives of families from toddler to teen.

What is the best thing that could happen to your coaching business in the next 2 years?

I get my own TV series called Parenting Made Easy with Sue Atkins

What is your favourite coaching question?

If I could be your Fairy Godmother and wave a magic wand for you – what would you most like me to change ?

What do you enjoy most about being a coach?

The difference I can make simply by asking meaningful and empowering questions
What are your top tips for:

People who are looking at coaching?

Be very clear about your niche and WHY you want to coach in that area.

Those coaches currently in training?

Believe in yourself and don’t let doubts get in your own way

Coaches that are about to qualify?

Now go and celebrate! It’s important to pat yourself on the back when you achieve small and large goals as it keeps you motivated

People that are in a similar situation to yourself?

Be grateful for the journey and the difference you make to people that have never even met you but read your articles and books.

Graduate of The Coaching Academy, Nelia Koroleva, helps her clients overcome their personal challenges on a regular basis as a professional performance coach. Here she shares her experience with managing personal influence and bias for the better.

What you say

What you say says a lot about your personality and your influence.

Many people focus solely on negativity and criticism, when they communicate with each other. It is a quick way to disengage and damage your reputation. Your influence would be proportionally diminished to the intensity and level of your negativity.

For example, you’ve delivered a feedback, appraisal or performance review. Your words were judgemental, harsh and overly critical. You were looking for errors and jumped to conclusions by passing judgment. The problem is, the more you stew in the negativity, the deeper the pathway becomes.

Even though you might have a position of  authority, you do not have the right to be negative Critical Parent to your employee, colleague, associate, friend, partner, child, etc. You verbally attacked the person who challenged your way of thinking, doing and being. Change it!

Always make sure that you choose appropriate words, whether you’re a parent, a boss, a colleague, or a friend. Your words are incredibly important for your own well-being. When you focus solely on negativity and criticism, you cannot be happy.

You can’t neglect words that bring you and others motivation, encouragement, development and growth.

Focus on what you are saying, and remember, when you pass judgment, you immediately lose the ability to establish a rapport with others and influence them. It’s much more liberating to take responsibility for your own feelings and encourage people than to criticise and blame them.

Challenging Exercise: Banish Your Negativity Bias.

If you don’t like your own image, and you are unhappy /cannot accept yourself, you will often feel unsatisfied/ unable to accept and like others.

Look at yourself in the mirror and speak with yourself for about one hour. YES, ONE HOUR.

And just like any strengthening exercise, the work requires activity and repetition to reinforce the new learning. So, every time you want to criticize someone, find a room with a mirror, speak honestly to yourself about your frustrations by looking at yourself.

I promise, you will discover many new things about yourself, i.e. acknowledge your own shadows.

I believe, you will understand more than you ever did.

Do you need to break your behaviour patterns?

How you behave

How you behave is extremely important. Have you ever seen a healthy adult behaving as a child or as a teenager? It might be funny, shocking, sad, depressing, embarrassing and even tragic.

Consider your behaviour, and be smarter than 5-7 year old. Consider the effect your behaviour would have on others. You must do it, as too many seemingly simple habits can have a huge impact upon your influence and your rapport with your team, friends, colleagues and family.

For example, every morning after coffee you walked over to Elena’s desk and told her about her mistakes in front of the team. Would Elena feel pleased at your attention? Would she look forward to seeing you? Would she feel motivated and encouraged?

Would she prepare simple questions to clarify aspects of her work? Or would she develop a Pavlovian hatred for coffee and be busy elsewhere whenever you pass by? Of course, you would never be so destructive – provided you thought about it.

Research by the centre for Creative Leadership has found that the primary cause of derailment in executives involve deficits in emotional competence. The three primary ones are the following: difficult in handling change, not being able to work well in a team, and poor interpersonal relations.

Do you have such problems at work, which usually described in terms like: ‘Jack is just lazy’ or ‘Jackie is a bad-tempered old has-been’? On the one hand, such people can poison the working environment; on the other hand, these descriptions are totally unhelpful. Are you feeling tired, frustrated and ‘over it’?

Deeply frustrated person, who internalises secular values and dread change most, usually demonise those who disagree with them, attacking anyone who challenges their thinking and unaware reliance on antiquated instincts, out-dated traditions and destructive ideologies.

Many frustrated people waste so much time and energy resisting change rather than adapting that they fail to win satisfaction and success.

It is your responsibility to ensure that your influence is a positive one. Devote some time to changing this, and you will complete life tasks and enjoy rewarding personal and professional relationships with consistent satisfaction within your home, communities, companies, etc.

You are the only one responsible for your personal growth and professional development.

Exercise: Break your pattern!

This exercise will help you build rapport with someone, enrich work environments or ease tension in personal relationships.

Remember situations in the last two weeks when you behaved inappropriately, and answer the following questions:

• Does your behaviour affect your personality? How?

• How your behaviour has an effect on the behaviour of others?

• What situations generally create such behaviour tension and stress for you?

• What negative thoughts play over and over in your mind on a regular basis?

• Are these a true picture of reality?

• Are you afraid to share your needs and feelings with others?

• What is holding you back?

• How you can handle these situations /behave differently?

You (and others) deserve to have happiness and success in life and work.

You (and others) deserve to do what you (they) truly want – unless it’s not against the law or other human dignity.

You (and others) deserve to be what you (they) want and dream to be – successful, happy, full field and satisfied.

What brought you to coaching?

Most of my working life has been spent as a Civil Servant in various management posts but a common thread throughout was working with, and developing, people from community leaders to fellow civil servants and other professionals.

I have always been a great believer in the power of coaching and over the years have seen how it can help people unleash their potential and surprise themselves and others with their achievements!

What were you original thoughts for applying for the coaching? I went along to the 2 day Coaching Academy course as I had been offered voluntary redundancy and hoped the course would help me in my personal decision making. In the event it did much more than that.

I saw that here was an opportunity to develop my coaching skills and turn my passion into a new career. The enthusiasm and professionalism of the presenters during the 2 days really impressed and I decided to sign up for the Personal Performance Diploma.

Which bits did you enjoy the most?

The day the box arrived was exciting and a bit daunting! I had previously completed a MBA via distance learning and knew that for me I really thrive on attending and participating in `live’ events so signed up for the majority of the accelerator days.

Knowing that I had deadlines to get course work in by helped me to maintain momentum. I found the standard of presentation at the weekends of the highest quality with lots of tips and tools that I would not have picked up through the written material alone.

Other trainee coaches at the accelerator days became good friends, helping me with co-coaching as well as providing a mutual support network.

How did the qualification slot in with your current life?

Just after I started the coaching diploma I accepted the offer of voluntary redundancy and was offered training to become a NLP Practitioner too. At that time I was part of the Management team leading on the closure of my office, helping to relocate around 180 staff.

It was a very hectic period but the NLP course complemented the coaching training so whilst challenging in terms of volume of work it was good to take the two courses together. The situation at work meant I had plenty of volunteers looking for coaching and it was great to be able to apply my learning to a very real situation and see that I could make a difference.

What did you find the most interesting to learn?

The work around values and beliefs – particularly relevant in a redundancy situation where people doubt their ability to find new employment or move into a new direction. I also like the flexibility of the Wheel of Life as it can be adapted to a number of scenarios eg Wheel of work, wheel of leadership, wheel of management etc.

What was the most rewarding part of the journey?

Completing the training within the deadline I had set myself and getting a distinction!

Where are you now? How are you using your coaching skills?

I qualified at the end of last year and now focus on career coaching (including job hunting, confidence building, personal performance development) and retirement planning. Getting my first `real’ client was very exciting and came through someone I worked with in the past.

For me I have come to realise the importance of networking in generating leads. Another opportunity came from an ex-colleague with her own consultancy company who asked me to work with her as an associate. I also do voluntary work with people on a 1:1 basis and apply my coaching skills here too.

In these relatively early days I would say that up to 80% of my working time is focussed on promoting and marketing my business, something which is quite new to me and not entirely within my comfort zone. A real opportunity to apply all that learning around limiting beliefs to myself!

What is the best thing that could happen within the next 2 years?

I would love to have established my business to the point where I can work 2 or 3 days a week to get the life work balance I am looking for.

What is your favourite coaching question? It is really 2 questions –

What would happen if you did this? (reached your goal)

What would happen if you didn’t?

What do you enjoy most about being a coach?

Seeing people realise they can (and do) achieve so much more than they first thought.

Top tips

People who are looking at coaching? Think about your personal motivation for becoming a coach – the training is time intensive but it is such a fantastic learning experience.

Coaches currently in training? Keep on top of the paper work. It is easy to get carried away with the excitement of the coaching and the learning but qualifying is easier if you document everything as you go along. Book your first assessed interview early in the process.

I was dreading this but the feedback was invaluable and gave me both enormous confidence that I was on the right lines as well as practical advice about how I could improve further.

Coaches that are about to qualify? Qualification is the beginning not the end! Think about how you are going to use your coaching qualifications – particularly if you are looking to set up your own business. Work on your elevator pitch and become confident at telling people what you do, you never know where your next lead may come from.

A member of my support group videoed us presenting our pitches which was a bit scary but a great way to fine tune our `scripts’. Finally look to continue the learning process – I put aside half a day a week to research around my topic and attend learning events around both Coaching and NLP.

People that are in a similar situation to yourself?

Network, network, network! Look for opportunities to promote your business but also to listen to what people want.

Happy coaching!

I just completed my PPD and Corporate Diploma from TCA after 7 months of the most remarkable & transformative journey in my life.

Prior to coaching, I have 20 yrs corporate experience in the sales arena and for the last 6 yrs handled the UK, France, Italy & Spain terrain understanding business sensitivities or perhaps misunderstanding it. Mindless travel and day to day tasks neither provided me time to think nor develop myself.

Never knew about the concept of setting personal goals. Just got mired into the sales routine with the intent of acquiring newer clients & strategize on quotas.

Signed up for the TCA certification programme in July 2011. Was a distinct experience. On day one of this programme, I advised the living daylights out of whoever appeared in front of me in the GROW exercises with one of the participants visualizing how to strangle me, another giving abbreviated curses, left the observer rotating on the head of a pin and a few other variants.

2nd day, I was better tamed. Understood the importance of silence, non judgmental & non-prescriptive approach in coaching . Did another coaching session on a participant and after the session his face manifested an 18th century stain-glass expression which I can now categorise as one that borders on heightened awareness.

Decided to do 2 diplomas from TCA the very same day, this skill has to be mastered.

In Aug 2011 emancipated myself from my job and enrolled for PPD & Corporate Diploma programs. Dabbled with the idea of starting on my own for a year but neither had the guts nor resourcefulness but finally crossed the chasm & set up my company in the UK ‘Headstride Ltd’ which has 2 arms : Leadership Coaching ( my niche ) and Sales Training/ Workshops ( my life time skill , indulgence & passion )

I chose Leadership as a niche as I was always drawn to its concepts and development theories. In my corporate career, I have met a few CxO’s and CEO’s of client companies and was intrigued at the level of their concern and perception.

The niche is challenging, seeks hardcore skills and attributes from me as a coach hence am encouraged to pursue it and stretch my zone. My 3 ½ year work stint in the Member of the Board & President’s office of a 11 bn USD firm also provides an iota of credibility and am a research- student now for life in this niche .

I also like life coaching due to its level of personal touch and have a few clients.

Coaching has been a radically new skill acquisition for me and with its listening, rapport creation, summarizing, paraphrasing and whole lot of ‘making a man out of you’ competencies, I have re-entered atmosphere & civilization. The contribution TCA made towards my development is indescribable.

Attended a seminar at London and learnt about a distinction ‘Biography is not Destiny’ and it was my light bulb moment. People do 4 yrs of engineering/law/MBA or 5 yrs of a particular function and this becomes their biography and they consider it as their only skill & destiny.

I further learnt that one can pursue whatever one wishes to and succeed if he/she is passionate in that field , stays the course , preserves faith daily and takes massive actions every day . In the first 12 years I worked in the Engineering & Technology industry, and then gave up my seniority and experience to work for the next 8 yrs in the emerging mobile communication industry.

Coaching & training is now the leitmotif of my life as it’s concordant with my objectives & desire.

Of the aspects that accentuated my learning, I attribute highest significance to the accelerator days, real-life coaching sessions & assessments, virtual seminars, well written module, books and workshops.

My goals for next 2 yrs:

• Carve out a brand for my firm Headstride Ltd in the transformation & personal development industry.

• Become one amongst the best leadership coaches & sales trainers in the world. Do whatever it takes to learn the nuances.

• Become an author and work in the cognitive sciences field (my role models being, Stephen Pinker, Robert Sapolsky & others).

• Become a TED world forum speaker

Tips for other qualifying colleagues:

• Coaching is not just a skill. It’s a personality shift administered through concepts and immersion to alter our thinking from a speaking & judging mode to a listening & reflecting mode . Keep it alive by being a serious student, peripheral book reading, augmenting courses etc before you submit your documents for assessment.

• In corporate coaching it helps if coach has both business touch (organizational knowledge) as well as Psychological touch (understanding cognitive & emotional states).

Though coaching is a forward looking concept and doesn’t delve too much into the past, a little bit about the genesis of the mind & its formation provides a bit more richness and texture to the coach’s skill.

• The biggest challenge during my qualification stage was to manage myself, my daily feelings and thoughts. I must admit out of 7 months, I must have easily squandered a month in self-doubt, anxiety, worries about scaffolding my business etc leading to inaction and rumination.

Had it not been for certain books and this protective umbrella of TCA, I would have regressed. Do manage your thoughts well, every day.

• Make the practice coaching sessions absolutely sacrosanct. It’s the best and most important skill building platform.

My favourite coaching question:
‘What is it that you want to become / do / experience, the lack of which gives you anxious moments’?

Sincere thanks to all the coaches for the practice sessions , you have so brilliantly facilitated my thinking and action orientation .

Best of luck and sincere wishes from my heart to all fellow qualifying coaches . I wish a day emerges , some sort of ‘ world coaching day’ and all of us get to celebrate at Trafalgar square or the likes of it .

TCA, what can I say, you folks are such a supremely motivated lot.

Nandu Menon

For once I followed my heart. Initially this meant relocating from South Africa to England to set up home with my soon to be husband.

However the experience of building a very new and different life, at a time when most people are comfortably settled into a rhythm of life heading towards retirement, soon became a journey that changed more than my marital status.

My South African career had been tough but rewarding. Various interludes in Information Technology and Human Resources had finally led to a fascinating role in Knowledge Management and a directorship in a large construction engineering organisation.

Here I learned that the essence of what makes me fulfilled is the development of people. It wasn’t the administration, the systems, the never-ending meetings, the ‘glamorous’ travel or the profile.

It was the marrying of business strategy with the development of its people – whatever intervention or programme was required.

Career counselling, graduate development, skills training, job shadowing, employment equity, self empowerment – creating the systems and opportunities for growth in confidence, technical ability and management at all levels.During this time I was first introduced to coaching and was on the receiving end of Leadership Coaching – then a new concept in South Africa.

I experienced coaching at its best and its worst.

The dichotomy proved to be valuable further down the line.

So arriving in England where I was unknown, and to some extent perceived to be superfluous to requirements, was a bit jarring. It took time to realise how much I had based my identify and self worth on external factors.

Those who have known you for a long time, the reputation you have built up over years – the track record that you have created in both your work and personal lives.

Intellectually I was ready for the challenge of a new life – I had thought through every aspect of it. But nothing prepared me for how it would all feel. In time I worked out that I had to look inside myself and reassess who I was and what I had to offer.

A really difficult process but so core to growth and ultimately to successful coaching.

Just as I had settled happily into living and working in England, news came that we were off to Hong Kong on a 3 year contract.

Immediately I started looking for something to set up that was about people, built on my existing experience and new personal awareness, and was completely transferrable – anywhere.

I happened upon an advertisement for a two day Coaching Certification with the Coaching Academy and headed along one dark February weekend in 2010. One hour into the first day and I was sure that I had found ‘IT’.

Now how to complete this before we left for the Far East? The Law of Attraction really does work and a month before our departure the distance learning version was launched. Et Voila! I arrived in Hong Kong with a few clothes, a new husband and a lot of Coaching Academy material!

Most interesting has been the understanding that to be an effective and authentic coach you have to do the work on yourself. You have to challenge your own baggage, beliefs and attitudes. Constantly.

It is not a hurdle to get over – it’s a challenge to go through. It is not an event – it is a process. It takes resilience, perseverance and an ability to detach but still empathise.

I loved discovering that I had the discipline to take on long distance studying with goals and deadlines and make it part of the adventure of building yet another chapter of my life on yet another continent.

I made the Personal Performance Diploma part of my life and not about work/life balance. It wasn’t extra work – it was The Work. For example – I didn’t have any practice clients and had to get out into Hong Kong and network to find them.

The result – a new skill and new clients. This helped me settle down in a new and very diverse city. I networked through the Coaching Academy Community to find coaching buddies and more practice clients.

I got taken for granted, dumped, treated as a ‘freebie’ – but ultimately have made great friends with a fellow Coaching Academy graduate – we supported each other through our qualification and made a point of meeting on skype at least monthly for a catch up and to set a new goal.

She’s in Barcelona and I am in Hong Kong but I plan to meet her face to face one day. I value this relationship.

I currently run a career coaching programme for the trailing spouse – freelancing for an international relocation company. Those of us (and I was one of them) that accompany our employed spouses have to find our own way in a new environment.

What do you need to do to find your place in this sexy, vibrant but culturally different island city? I coach candidates through the preparation, projection and paperwork required to find that place. And it always starts with the journey of looking at oneself through ‘fresh eyes’.

I didn’t find my niche – it found me. The programme was offered to me as part of my relocation package and I chose to use it to build my own coaching business.

Watching my clients challenge themselves and achieve what they set out to – through the catalysts of questioning and support is exactly what I should be doing now. This is IT.

The programme offers that perfect combination of personal performance and fulfilment under the Career Coaching label. It is always challenging as each client brings a unique kaleidoscope of values, beliefs and attitudes.

I fill up inside as I watch the ‘A-HA’s drop into place. My favourite question is ‘How does it serve you to hold onto this thought?’

But it’s not enough. Next journey goal to be an even better coach with an even bigger business is an NLP qualification.

As I write I am preparing for a course next week. Through the NLP pre-work it has become very clear that Personal Performance Certification offered through The Coaching Academy is an excellent one. It is holistic, authentic and applicable wherever there are people.

As I engage with coaches who have qualified through different organisations from all over the world – I can more than hold my own.

For those of you who are on a similar journey – whether your road is less travelled or more so – I feel there are three nuggets to hold on to:

1. Trust that you have made the right decision. Never give up. Set backs are opportunities for learning and reframing.

2. Seek out and spend time with people who are like you. You need the reinforcement. And they are out there -all over the world.

3. Just Start. Take that first step.