How I came into Coaching Kicking & Screaming

How I came into Coaching Kicking & Screaming: Finding my Calling for the Second Half of Life

Last week during the conversation with ICF Kenya Charter Chapter coaches, I confessed that I came into coaching kicking and screaming. Why, you might wonder?

💡 From the moment I stepped into graduate school in 2003, I knew I wanted to be involved in leadership development. What that meant wasn't clear to me at the time. But my motivation to move halfway across the globe, leaving behind all I had known for the first 29 years of my life, was to learn so that I could train others.

⏩ Fast forward to 2020. After Covid-19 took my co-parent and totally upended my life. Seemed as good a time as any to pick up my kids and run home to mother.

🏃‍♀️ And run, I did. But again, Covid-19 wasn't quite done disrupting my life. 2021, I had a heart attack.

🏥 As I settled into the long road to recovery, I realized that something had to give. I'd been running myself rugged for two decades, from one job to another, one side hustle to another. As we say in Kenya, life was life-ing. But am not sure that I was living...those last few years, I was merely existing. Burnt out, stressed out.

🏫 It was in the midst of all this upheaval that I decided to reflect back on why I had gone into graduate school to study leadership, my experiences as a leadership educator, my roles in the various communities I called home, and came to the conclusion that, it was time to pivot.

⏪ I pivoted out of the higher education context, and picked up what had hitherto been merely a side hustle - coaching, training, mentoring i.e. leadership development. My side-hustle became the fulltime gig, while my university teaching took the second position.

🈁 So here we are, 1.5 years into this adventure, I am loving it! 🈁

🤟 The same passion I took into educating undergraduate and graduate students —my love for inviting people into a journey of transformation — is very much a part of my coaching journey.

🤟 What's more, the life experiences —the good, the bad and the ugly—that have dotted my life upto this point, the wisdom of age (yes, am a happy midlifer), training and expertise, spiritual discernment and accompaniment, all these inform the coaching conversations that my clients and I engage in. And I am finding it all deeply fulfilling.

📲 All this to say, I have found my calling, my second (or is it third) act.

🙌 Allow me to re-introduce myself. I am Dr Faith Ngunjiri, leadership coach, educator, mentor, and spiritual director. 🙌

Talk to me about one-to-one coaching, group coaching, bespoke training for your leaders and managers at your organization, and keynote speaking. I am at your service!

#coaching #leadershipdevelopment #leadershipcoaching #mentoring #leadershipeducation #spiritualdirection