CELEBRATE YOU
Career ✦ Executive ✦ Wellness ✦ Retirement ✦ Life Transitions ✦ Leadership
FAQs
How does coaching work when you are in different locations/continents to those of your your clients?
Besides connecting using telephone (long distance calls) I use applications such as Zoom, Skype, What's App, Face Time (for Apple users) or any other application that provides voice or video calls. It's either free or a simple cost service that reaches almost any place in the world. You simply go to the application, open an account and choose a user name. You simply book an appointment in the Client Log In section of this website from the available calendar, make payment, and you receive a book confirmation via email. NOTE: Due to the nature of many clients booking appointments in different time zones to me (I am GMT -5) please ensure that the appointment you make is at a suitable time for you. At the time of booking please send an email to notify me which application you are using. For our first call I suggest connecting 10 - 15 minutes prior to our call to ensure we are connected properly. For all appointments the client calls me. We use voice or video - as you wish. If your computer doesn’t have one, you can buy a clip on video camera quite inexpensively.
How often do you suggest clients meet with you?
Typically, I meet with clients every two weeks, given them enough time to fully complete on their actions connected to their goals. If clients are feeling more ambitious and keen to make significant change in a short time-frame they sometimes prefer meeting weekly.
How long does the coaching process last? How will I know when it’s time to end?
This varies widely ... there is no one answer. Sometimes clients engage with me as their executive coach to work on a specific issue and goals; we create a strategic plan for said time frame - a plan that is flexible and often shifts and changes with time as per the client's needs and wants, and as clarity of their goal(s) take shape. Occasionally clients will only feel the need for a one-off session of "laser coaching," in which we zero-in on a pressing stand-alone issue. More often clients commit to a program of varying length - be it 3, 6 or 12 months - to tackle some bigger goals, take advantage of my ongoing support week to week, month to month, and make significant change in their lives, both personally and professionally. You the client drive the process: your agenda is my agenda, and I stand in support of you at all times. At the end of your program, with new insight and clarity about yourself - habits and thinking that serves or not - as you stand in a new place of understanding and possibility, you decide whether or not you wish to continue working with me as your coach. Some clients take a break. Others recommit to a longer program. The choice is yours!
As an Executive Coach what is your experience as an expat/expatriate?
I was born in Toronto, Canada, and hold two passports (Canadian and British). Over 30 years I have lived in ten countries, for university studies and work (for my career and as the spouse of a global executive). Those countries include Canada (Toronto), England (London), the United States (California), France (Provence), New Zealand (Auckland), Spain (Madrid and Valencia), Germany (Hamburg), The Netherlands (Hilversum), Saudi Arabia (Jeddah), and Italy.
In the last 20 years I have moved homes 18 times between eight countries, navigating five languages while raising two Third Culture Kids. One son was born in New Zealand, one in France. The too hold two passports (New Zealand and Canadian). One son has severe autism and complex special needs, so I have had to facilitate a constantly complex and ever-changing landscape of doctors, therapists, education systems, and more in different languages to support his intensive needs.
For the last 12 years I have been a single mother raising my sons from a young age on my own with their father oceans away, rarely seeing them. I intimately understand the huge, often daunting and overwhelming, demands of raising children alone.
My life experience is very unique. I know what it’s like to feel parachuted into a different culture and language in a foreign country, without a support system in place. Knowing no one. I have done it with nothing more than a suitcase for each of us time and again. No relocation support. It's just been me to face the logistical, cultural and linguistic odyssey of establishing residency, finding and settling a home, sourcing schools, dentists and doctors, finding activities, making friends. Making a life!
I intimately, compassionately, knowingly am aware of the challenges you, as an expat, face on a daily basis: the frustrations and the unexpected moments of joy and exhilaration ... and everything in between!
What if I need to cancel an appointment?
Cancellations are to be made via text or email at least 24 hours in advance of a session to avoid paying for the session.