My ears are open

I knew I would thrive on coaching – but this much?

I now have a roster of BBC coaching clients in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Salford and London.

I’m developing my niche.   Identifying strengths.  Focussing forward, on what success means for each client and how to get there.   Looking at the whole life experience – body and mind – and embracing “mid-life” as a fresh chance to thrive.

It’s immensely rewarding to keep learning. I’ve just survived my first essay crisis for MAPPCP – that’s the Masters in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology at the University of East London.

And this week I discovered how much I enjoy teaching.

Together with fellow BBC coach and marketing whizz Isabella Kornas, I ran my first workshop at the BBC  – an Introduction to Coaching Skills – for 35 members of our Global Women in News network (GWiN). Participants came to the two hour event from as far afield as Salford, Coventry and Norwich.

I talk live on TV for a living, to audiences in the hundreds of thousands, but I still got that “gulp!” moment of looking at this room full of expectant faces and thinking “I hope this works!”

It did.  Everybody brought energy;  the buzz and buy-in was apparent from the very first Q & A.  Two hours later, after Active Listening, Powerful Questions, and Challenging Assumptions, we finished by fielding a host of questions about what it takes to coach, how to develop… and when are we going to do this next?

I’m thrilled to say I’ve already been asked to do more to help deliver coaching training at the BBC.

So this year, my coaching plans are:

Learn more!

Practise more!

And reach out.

Thank you for reading.