[What brought you into coaching?]

I think every coach gets asked that. And interestingly enough, what brought me into coaching was not that I wanted to become a coach. I was an organizational development practitioner or OD consultant as we call it and I thought that I was not having the kinds of conversations that I wanted to have with senior leaders and executives when I went into organizations. The conversations were quite superficial.

I thought, if I go back to school and learn coaching, then I will learn how to have better conversations. About halfway through the program, one of the instructors actually heard me telling someone that I had no intention of becoming a coach, I was just there to learn the skills. And she pulled me aside and decided to ask me, what was the rationale of me not becoming a coach?

I shared with her that I could not see how I could combine consulting and coaching. Fortunately, she was able to help me with some coaching at that time, to really help me develop my identity as a coach.  

Once I had this reframing of what it could mean to be both a consultant and a coach, I have never looked back, and to be honest with you, coaching is primarily what I do now. I really enjoy coaching. I like the idea of sitting down with one individual and providing a container or a platform that I am responsible for making safe enough so that this individual feels safe and comfortable.

[You talked about making clients feel safe and comfortable, how do you establish that space for a client?]

The way that I create that space is by sharing a little bit about myself. Who I am,  how I have grown up, the challenges that I have experienced, and the leadership positions I have had. 

What I have witnessed is that, after I share, they have absolutely no problems sharing, and oftentimes they go much deeper in terms of their self-disclosure. And we know that disclosure is one of the primary features of trusting. The more I share with you, the more you are probably going to share with me, as you truly now feel comfortable being vulnerable. 

[What is your background, how does your identity fit into your coaching approach?]

I will share with clients that my first trip out of the country was when I was 3 years old. We lived in this little French village from when I was 3 until 6 years old. My father was in the military. We were the only Americans in this village, so we were definitely the only African Americans in this village. My sister and I would go out playing with the kids and we had the run of the village. My mother never had to worry about us. 

I did appreciate the effect that this freedom had on me, I became pretty independent. I would take risks that most 3-6 year-olds wouldn’t even have permission to do. I think that between 3 and 6 is when I was able to form a really strong sense of independence and autonomy. And what was fascinating was the environmental change when we came back to the United States. 

My grandparents lived in the deep south, and when we visited them before going to my father’s next assignment, I was exposed to stark discrimination and bigotry for the first time. We went to a department store and there were these two water fountains. One had a sign saying ‘white’, and one had a sign saying ‘color’. At the time as a six-year-old African American who had lived in France, I was thinking that the water fountain saying color meant that there was a different color of water coming out of it. And so, when I pushed the button, and the water came out and it looked like water, I thought that was strange. I went to the other water fountain and expected the water to be white. And it looked the same. I was thinking, this is the strangest thing, why would you have two water fountains sitting side by side, and they have the same water coming out, but you see signs with one saying ‘white water’ and one with ‘colored water.’

So, I’m playing back and forth, and some of the clerks at the department store see me and they inform my grandmother who is petrified. You didn’t do that stuff in the deep south then. Even though I was a child she knew that could cause a lot of conflict and potentially harm. She immediately got me and rushed me off. And that was my first experience with how I’m different. And I’m different in a way that people think I needed a different kind of water fountain. Even though the water looks the same, the water tastes the same. That was my first ‘aha moment.’ 

And so as I grew up, with my father in the military, I had one foot in the culture of the segregated deep south where my grandparents lived. And I had another foot in the integrated military posts where we lived. And I learned to navigate those two different cultures. Looking back on it now, it was a navigation of these cultures that would later help me to navigate the stark racism and bigotry and overall hatred that I would experience as an African American as I grew up. 

[When you share these stories now, how do your coaching clients receive them?]

I don’t necessarily go into the detail that I shared with you. I share that my first real experience of being different is when I came upon the two water fountains and I go on to share about other events. I don’t linger on any of these events, in my life, very long. But it does provide them with an opportunity to begin to sense how different experiences actually contribute to your sense of values, your sense of worth, and even your identity. 

And of course, coaching oftentimes is an opportunity for individuals to wrestle with their values. They have to go back and figure out where these values come from. How do events in my own life contribute to the lens in which I view the world now? How does it contribute to the identities (I share that everyone has multiple identities) the intersection of identities that an individual carries around. There are some identities that have a much more prominent role in their lives than others. 

The question then becomes, why? And what new identity do they need to begin thinking about framing? For example, I work with a lot of individuals who are half-transitioned into leadership roles. And they have not thought about themselves as a leader. Part of the conversation becomes how do you form your own identity as a leader instead of allowing others to inform it for you. 

[How do you help clients who have experienced discrimination increase their autonomy?]

Each person is unique and complex in that uniqueness. In the way I grew up, I had one foot in one type of culture and one foot in another. And I had that streak of independence on top of it. I grew up in a way that gave me more of a sense that it doesn’t matter what others think of me, because I’m going to go ahead and move forward anyway. 

It was almost an arrogance that I had in terms of not allowing how others perceived me (or how they thought of me) affect me. It was because of what had happened as I was growing up. 

On the other hand, there are individuals who did not have the same experience. If you grew up in the segregated south, and it was reinforced to you that not only were you an African American, but you were inferior, then you bring that into adulthood. And it is a matter of: how do you work through that so that you don’t have this internal self-hatred. There are a lot of people walking around who don’t like themselves a lot. And it’s not just black people, it is a lot of people, period. So, what is it that contributed to that?

It could have very well been your parents, reinforcing that you weren’t a good person. And some people will say, this is what you talk about in therapy. But as far as I’m concerned, if you’re not self-aware of some of these experiences that have happened, then you’re not going to potentially understand why you are reacting to some of your experiences in your here and now. And I’ve learned as a coach which unresolved experiences and events are contributing to someone’s anguish and even potentially traumatized profile. 

[What is your starting place to help clients dealing with anguish, trauma, inferiority, etc.]

It depends on where they are starting. I have taken some courses to help me recognize and appreciate what trauma is. I'm expanding my coaching understanding so that it is trauma informed. I’m better at recognizing what is going on. I’m not someone who is adept at working through trauma. So, if the trauma is significant enough, and the client is stuck in that particular aspect of their life, then they probably need help beyond what I can give.

In the notion of inferiority, it is helping them unpack what perhaps even contributed to that sensation. And what I have found is that this is not just a phenomenon that is unique to African Americans. You talk to women, and they will often mention feeling inferior even with success. It’s common thinking and its’ been given this name of imposter syndrome with these automatic negative thoughts. These just pop up and it’s not something that you can control. So, helping people to recognize when they are having these automatic negative thoughts, and to recognize them for what they are and to self-coachl, is important.

[You have a breathe and recenter sign behind you, tell me about that]

With the beginning of Covid and having to go virtual with almost all of my coaching. I realized my video background is one that everyone will see. So how can it impact individuals both consciously and subconsciously. I realized that what I wanted individuals to be able to do in the middle of a coaching session is breathe and recenter. So sometimes I will even bring it to their attention if I notice they are getting tense or emotional. And I will take them through some breathing, to help them appreciate the power of deep breathing.

If that happens, in other coaching sessions they are going to be seeing it behind me as a subliminal hint. And sometimes I even see clients take this big breath. And all of a sudden, they are calming themselves down. And sometimes it is me seeing the calm and recenter sign. So, it is not just for my clients it is also for me as a reminder to stay grounded and centered.