The
most important thing to know about me is that
I’m a working Mum. My elder
daughter was born in 1995, followed three
years later by her sister. I nearly didn’t
go back to work after my first baby was born,
as I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving
her with strangers. Fortunately, my parents
stepped in to the breach and were prepared
to drive a 100-mile roundtrip to look after
her 2 days a week.
After
that, my work patterns and childcare arrangements
changed. It became obvious that I couldn’t
do my job in 2 days a week and so I increased
to 3 days a week and my daughter went to nursery
when she was one. When my second child was
born, a nanny was a more economical option
than two nursery places, and my husband negotiated
with his employer to be able to look after
the girls one day a week.
While
all that was going on my work underwent a
huge change. For most of my working life,
I’ve been involved in people management
and development. I started with British Telecom,
which gave me lots of opportunities to move
around and be involved in graduate recruitment,
general personnel management and recruitment,
ending up as a management trainer.
Just
before I married and had my children, I was
working as a business advisor with my local
Training and Enterprise Council, going out
and about to employers in the area, to give
them advice about the Investors in People
standard. (Investors in People are a national
quality standard about how well organisations
manage and develop their people.) I also became
an Investors in People assessor.
All
this was fine and I was very lucky to have
a boss who was a part-time working Mum herself,
and very supportive of flexible working. Then,
in 2001, the Training and Enterprise Councils
were reorganised, coinciding neatly with my
elder daughter starting school full-time.
I was faced with the problem of what to do
about childcare during the school holidays
and decided to take redundancy and go self-employed.
I
continued happily as an Investors in People
advisor and assessor, management consultant
and management trainer, able to increase the
number of days I worked, once my second daughter
went to school full-time, but keeping school
holidays free to be with my children. And
then I got in to coaching…
Why
coaching?
I
got in to coaching after doing two 20-day
NLP training programmes to become an NLP Master
Practitioner. (If you haven’t
come across NLP = Neuro-Linguistic Programming,
please ask me about it!) I trained with a
company called International Teaching Seminars,
which also offers coaching.
I
loved NLP so much that I wanted to experience
the coaching. I worked with the same coach
over about six months and really reaped the
benefits. I became much clearer about what
I really wanted out of life and how I could
get a better work-life balance. I worked on
a lot of confidence and beliefs issues and
came out much more confident and motivated
to make changes. I actually got on and did
what I said I was going to do much more quickly
and in a more focused way than I could have
done without the support and impetus my coach
gave me.
I
continue to have regular coaching myself –
I wouldn’t be without the time it gives
me to step back from the busyness of being
a working Mum and keep me on track with the
important things of life.
One
of the main things that came out of my own
coaching was wanting to be a coach myself,
as I enjoyed it so much and got so much out
of it myself. I could see it was an opportunity
to make a difference in people’s lives,
which was lacking from my other work. In 2005,
I completed another 20-day training programme,
accredited by the International Coach Federation,
qualifying me as a coach.
Other
official stuff
In
case you want to know my qualifications,
I have an MA from Cambridge University (which
is a BA really) in French, German and Linguistics.
I am a member of the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development and a member of
the International Coach Federation. I continue
to be a registered Investors in People Practitioner.
More
personal stuff
Other
things you may or may not want to know about
me:
I
am active in my local church and help to co-ordinate
the children’s groups on a
Sunday. In 2005, I was one of the founder
members of Kingston NSPCC fund-raising group
and regularly pester my local Sainsbury’s
to give us money. Other than being passionate
about children getting the best start in life,
I also try to do my bit to save the planet,
and you’ll often find me recommending
a great eco-friendly company and its product
range to people. Ask me about Melaleuca and
its toiletries, cosmetics, vitamins and cleaning
products!
(P.S.
I also enjoy reading and foreign travel!)
