Describe your transition from {name the profession} to professional coaching as a Certified Coach?
To help you learn how certified coaches got their start, we asked them this question and collected their unique life stories. From starting out in HR to Scuba Diving to management consulting, there are many industries and roles that these leaders have worked in before making the transition to professional coaching.
Here is how six certified coaches transitioned their careers:
- Transition from Human Resources to Coaching
- Transition From Education Leadership to Coaching
- Transition From Recruiting to Life Coach
- Transition From Regional Manager in Retail to Coaching
- Build a Foundation in Coaching Before Jumping into It
- Transition From Scuba Diving Instructor to Coaching
- Transition From Commercial Director to Executive Coach
- Transition From Management Consultant to Leadership Coach
Transition from Human Resources to Coaching
My transition from the Human Resources profession to professional coaching as a Certified Coach involved a change in focus from company initiatives to that which is personally meaningful to my clients. Furthermore, the measure of success changes from equating to performance reviews and promotions to success as defined by the client. Finally, the focus in terms of challenges or roadblocks that may interfere with obtaining meaningful goals changes from those that directly impact performance and compliance with company standards or metrics, a priority for human resources, to exploration of those that impact a client’s current thinking, framing, decision-making and prioritization. This journey to coaching was impactful in countless ways and further clarified how important looking deeply into the whole person affects motivation, focus, and obtaining what we want.
Transition From Education Leadership to Coaching
I transitioned gradually from education leadership to coaching: during my time as a senior leader in schools I was trained in coaching skills and used a coaching approach with my team. I worked as a leadership coach and mentor for senior leaders and headteachers for a national organization and then decided to get more training. Whilst in my role I trained both at a postgraduate level and through an ICF accredited diploma and transitioned from full-time education to a full-time business as a career and confidence coach at the end of this training.
Transition From Recruiting to Life Coach
After spending 10 years working in the recruitment sector, I became disillusioned with where my career was going. I’d achieved money, and promotion and created successful sales teams but I still wasn’t happy. And I wasn’t fulfilled.
So after a period of soul searching, I started to understand my strengths better. I grew to understand what aspects of my job I did like, and what I didn’t. One of the main things that I loved was working 1:1 with people to help them achieve goals. And this is when I knew that I wanted to be a coach.
Then, I decided to buy a Life Coaching course to study over 9 months.
Transition From Regional Manager in Retail to Coaching
I never intended to start a business or train as a coach. I left my last retail role without a new job to go to, narrowly dodging the burnout bullet. The plan was to find another job, just with less travel and a better work/life balance. And yet the idea of coaching had been in my mind for years. I’d had a coach in two previous roles and loved how magical it felt to go into a coaching session and come away an hour or two later with a completely new perspective.
So while I was waiting to hear back about jobs I didn’t actually really want to do, I humored myself by looking online at coach training programs. I booked a taster day with an accredited training provider and woke up the day after it with a fire in my belly I hadn’t felt for years. Within a month, I’d registered my business, attended the first week of training, and got myself a job to tide me over while I got my certification
Coaching is what I knew I wanted to do but didn’t dare dream was possible
Build a Foundation in Coaching Before Jumping into It
I was working full-time when I invested in an ICF-accredited coach training program that offered evening classes so I could continue making an income while developing my skills. This ended up making all the difference in the world.
As part of the training, I began working with paying clients – I started with 1 client in the first 6 months. I lacked structure and confidence in my coaching and had I jumped into it full-time at that point, I would have had a much harder time.
4 years later, I’d completed the training, coached over 100 hours, and developed a structure and confidence that I could coach anyone. Earning the ACC credential also made it easier to attract clients. I enjoy working in a team, so I applied for my dream job as an internal coach at an exciting startup and have been coaching there ever since. All because I built a foundation in coaching before jumping in.
- Morgan Toane, Certified Coach, EQ and Inclusion Professional, Entry Learning
Transition From Scuba Diving Instructor to Coaching
I was a Scuba Diving Instructor in the Caribbean for over 20 yrs. I moved to the UK in 2010 and took up a career in Industrial diving. For the next 10 yrs, I became increasingly unhappy and out of touch with who I was as a person. I felt like my life had no real authentic purpose. I randomly met a young lady on a diving holiday who was very nervous about trying diving. After a few conversations together I was able to help to get over her fear of diving. She was so impressed with my way of being and communicating that she suggested I try coaching as a career. She sent me some information on coaching schools which I ended up pursuing.
Transition From Commercial Director to Executive Coach
It was a vocational shift for me, I realized I wanted to switch from an operational role to that of a supportive service provider. My coaching supervisor helped me make a shift, she shared the story of the two fish in the sea, where one said to the other “the waters cold today” and the other replied, “what’s water ?”
To become an effective coach, I need to be fully immersed. Since 2010, I have been on an incredible journey that now enables me to share my passion for lifelong learning and self-development with my clients in a partnership where we coach with compassion and discard coaching for compliance. By coaching with compassion, I am able to support my clients to become the people they aspire to be.
Transition From Management Consultant to Leadership Coach
Working as a management consultant in a very large Corporate consultancy I didn’t realize that I was already coaching the clients I was working with! When I transitioned from there to a smaller more specialized Leadership consulting firm I decided to do a Coaching Diploma. This exposed me to what it really meant to work as a coach, which for me then was realizing that true/deep listening is at the heart of it. Since qualifying as a coach in 2003 I have navigated my own transitions and have continued to learn and deepen my understanding of what it means to be human, both in leadership and in life transitions.
