Episode 40 – My Journey Into Coaching & Consulting
podcast being revised and will be republished 06-22-2022 My own journey into health and mindfulness coaching, and consulting, began with a passion to empower other health care providers who are struggling with burnout daily because I lived through it!
The Inspiration To Become A Coach
There are times in our lives when we work tirelessly to reach goals, but then find ourselves not as far along as we’d like to be. We can even doubt or question if we’re on the right path and what to do next. It’s common to want to get to our goals faster, and sometimes we focus tirelessly and let nothing stand in the way of that goal. At other times, we don’t know what we’re doing wrong and keep bumping up against the same blocks. If you’ve ever experienced this as an athlete, you would simply ask your coach to direct you so you get better clarity and focus. I recall being only 11 years old, as a synchronized swimmer and said to my coach “I can’t”…and she told me right away “never say you can’t”. And that was probably the life-changing moment that started this journey. I’d then I learned to ask my coach where I was going wrong, instead of telling myself I couldn’t do something, and she’d gladly redirect me to find a better way. I know all too well the struggles that we all face day-to-day to succeed at something important.
After years as a nurse, I’ve followed many people’s journey to improved health until I faced a car crash on Highway 401 in Ontario. This is where I found myself having to be my own health coach, on a journey to physical recovery. I broke many bones and had many life-saving surgeries, including a resuscitation. My own journey into health, mindfulness and meditation coaching, and eventually workplace health consulting came with a great deal of uncertainty, and failures. But each one with a unique intention towards my own peak performance. I believe all health practitioners strive to find balance between happiness, peak performance, and personal success. My journey into health coaching started with a desire to share my own personal strategies and insights that transformed my own life – from the days where I struggled to keep balanced while working shifts, to later on recovering 100% from a terrible car crash and creating a ground breaking workplace retention program with a performance framework that will support all health practitioners to achieve that personal success they desire most.
I’ve been fortunate to have spent my life surrounded by athletes, starting with my own athletic pursuits in synchronized swimming and eventually becoming a synchro coach, lifeguard and swim instructor. I pushed my limits of mental and physical ability as a synchronized swimmer, and later-on in becoming a nurse and eventually going to graduate school and writing a Masters Thesis. I know that the performance framework that I have created, Satori’s 5-step system for peak performance, is one that helps me everyday and supports people through whatever challenges they’re facing.
The Seed To Becoming A Coach-Consultant
As I said, these performance enhancing strategies that I adapted in Satori’s 5 Step System for peak performance helped me, and eventually others, find greater balance and be more effective during long and strenuous work days. But I was already a nurse, before studying coaching, but because of my accident, I dropped into the non-practicing RN class. I wasn’t quite ready to go back into frontline work, and taking-on employment. My life had to slow down for quite a few years after recovering from the accident and as a result of that accident, I learned to make better choices that would support my growth. The workplace health model didn’t support the expanded version of me that I’d become. Pay attention here…because this was a very important fork in the road for me.
I had left the hospitals in 2004, and wrapped up grad school in 2009, settled my accident claim around 2010 and was trading on the stock market everyday. Everything was going great in my life, but I was missing the client contact. I wanted to help people – not just sit at a computer and make money. But I didn’t feel the workplace health model in hospitals was every going to support my next level growth. And this is where many nurses are today, and have been for years. The seed to seeing better workplace health was starting to germinate after I made the decision to pursue strategic intervention coach training, with Tony Robbins and Cloe Madanes. I knew that with a coaching education from Tony Robbins, I could apply my skills in peak performance and help take people to their next level – something I just couldn’t do with only a BScN from McMaster University and a Masters in Education in The School of Social Justice. I had no desire to just sit on the sidelines as a health coach, because I know how challenging it is for people to overcome struggle. Everyone has a different path to success, and they need unique strategies to create that personal fulfilment. As adult, we get stuck in limiting beliefs and coaches are the ones that help unlock those deeply engrained patterns. Along the way, upon the creation of Satori Health & Wellness Coaching Ltd, I fumbled quite a lot in finding my ideal clients. Eventually, after many failed attempts and working with local clinics, I started to find my groove with busy professionals and then back into mentoring health practitioners.
From One-on-One Coaching To Course Creator
As you can see, my journey into coaching evolved organically. Looking back at some of the challenges I was having as a nurse, I could see how a self-paced coaching/personal development/mindfulness/stress-management program could have been so helpful, and useful back then. I worked so much as a nurse. I was non-stop! I learned to meditate when I graduated from my BScN in 1999, and each day I’d get in 2 twenty-minute meditations. That’s a huge reset. So my point here is I worked a lot and I didn’t like going slowly, and that’s likely why my car accident happened. The truth is, I was going too fast. Metaphorically speaking, I did not want to put the breaks on. I was seeing the same problems happening over and over with some of the clients I had in my one-on-one practice. They’d get overzealous and book appointments they often couldn’t keep.
Before created what is now The ProMind Experience, I conducted in-depth interviews and interviewed health care professionals to see what was missing in their lives. I wanted to understand how they envisioned their life without all the added pressures. I wanted to know if there was an easy solution for them, and how a step-by-step system might help them see things differently. I then had to test take action and motivate them towards better health and personal clarity, would they jump in?
Everyone said YES! Bring it on.
So that’s when I started creating The School of Health, Mindfulness & Spirituality, and my signature program Pro-Mind in 2018. But after testing a few features, in 2019, we noticed that we needed to get more creative with engagement if we wanted people to really get through the lessons, and finish the program. I was getting the urge to bring this to hospitals, so we turned into an experience product. Hence, the ProMind Experience – truly the next generation wellness product. It outperforms the competition by far.
From Course Creator to Consultant to CEO
The Pro-Mind Experience is a system that would train you to be a peak performer, and helps you to see beyond your blindspots and discover your needs in a deeper way to help you become a better leader. The ProMind Experience really guides personal discovery, in a step-by-step way…over 7 weeks. When you do the program, as a hospital, you’re giving your staff the opportunity I wish I had when I was a nurse, to explore my personal and professional objectives and develop actionable strategies to accomplish my deepest desires. I think this is what will take hospital retention programs to the next level making hospitals the best they can be.
I’m on a journey that’s true and authentic to me – who I want to be, how I want to serve, and for the people I wish to serve. I’m on a mission to create a community of #mindfulclinicians, where I hold the space for them to be real and authentic. Inside of this experiential program, your workplace learns the tools and strategies to build a life of peace, joy and happiness. You think those are cliché words? So do I. But they’re important, and they’re real, to living a life of health and longevity while bridging the gap between your personal and professional life is important!
I want to help you reach your organizational goals and grow. There’s always a gap between where you are and where you want to be. If you’re interested in building better habits, and shifting your mindset, head over to our website and explore all our opportunities at www.satorihwcoaching.ca.
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