Raj Girn: Hi everyone! Welcome to another exciting episode of the ‘Transform Your Confidence’ podcast, a place where we bring you into our inner circle of recommended leaders, experts, and thought leaders to garner their insights of knowledge and techniques that are working today with the goal of levelling up your repertoire of expertise so that you’re always set up to win.
In today’s show, we will be focusing on Leadership & Advocacy with the theme of Why Personal Coaching Is A Game Changer To Building Confidence.
TO WATCH:
TO LISTEN:
TO READ, SCROLL DOWN:
Raj Girn: Before we being, I’d like to remind you to subscribe to our YouTube channel at The Open Chest Confidence Academy to view all video versions of the show and also search Transform Your Confidence wherever you receive your audio podcasts, so you never miss an episode, when we launch them every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month. Please remember that and hit the notification button just in case you don’t remember.
In today’s show, we will be focusing on Leadership & Advocacy with the theme of Why Personal Coaching Is A Game Changer To Building Confidence.
My guest today is Abirambika Ravivarman, founder of Human Systems at Work, president of the International Coach Federation’s Toronto Chapter, a systems leadership and tech coach, and a Guinness World Records holder – no less! I am so excited to have her on the show. She is the perfect expert to deep dive the topic of today’s show.
I’m thrilled to welcome you, Abi, to lean into what we know as women to be a very important skill to learn and master, especially in leadership positions, and that is confidence. Thank you for agreeing to be on.
Abirambika Ravivarman: Thank you so much, Raj! My pleasure, and I’m looking forward to it. Looking at all the wonderful work that you do and your audience, this is an exciting conversation that we’re going to have. Thank you so much!
Oh my gosh, Abi! Well, let’s begin by getting the audience to know a little bit about you. Can you share a bit about your background, Abi?
Yes! I’m a banker by background. I started off in banking and then eventually moved into entrepreneurship. It’s a good mix of, I think, 12 years of corporate leadership space and now 10 year as an entrepreneur. I can see how my life has transitioned, and as a coach now, working with clients, I feel blessed and so happy to share whatever I’m going to share with you today.
Absolutely, Abi! I can’t wait to dive in, but before we do, I have to ask you, I’m so curious, what Guinness Book of World Record do you hold?
Yeah, thanks! In fact, that was the first challenge I took on myself. I’m from India, and when I moved here, at that time, when I started moving, and from a corporate space to an entrepreneur, there was that big – I want to tag it back to confidence, right? What would challenge you to really become an entrepreneur or be in that space and continue on your path?
My mom just jokingly said, “Why don’t you do a Guinness Record?” I was like, “What is that? Did I hear right?” She said, “Yes, of course! If you can do that, that’s the confidence not just for yourself but the confidence that your clients will have in you because you took on something.”
I know that usually in Guinness, there’s a lot of process, you need enough funds, all of that. But if you didn’t have any and you just had yourself, how would you approach it? That was my challenge. We had the record for maximum pledges on how to become more self-sustained in being confident and resilient. We had a lack of 20,000 pledges that we took, and once we did that, it was when I really launched my company. So that was like my initial bedrock.
The more we embrace our humanity in the workplace, the more we see a shift. People start to feel a sense of belonging, engagement, and value. As a result, productivity rises, not from pressure, but from purpose. That’s how resilience is built. This is the heart of the work I do.
Oh my gosh! I absolutely love it! What a great way to step into creating an innovative space for yourself and you as a leader. I love that you did that! So, this brings me to ask you, you’re the founder of Human Systems at Work. What did you see missing in the workplace that encouraged you to create this company?
So, you know, in workplaces, especially in corporate workspaces, there is a lot of pressure. There is induced pressure, and you see people getting burnt out quite a lot. At that time, you know, sometimes when I share this, people are like, “Huh, is that really true?” My son literally didn’t even know that I was his mom for almost two years. He used to believe that my mother was his mother, right? Because that’s the way he spent his time.
For me, it felt like, “Okay, what else can this look like? What else can I do?” It was a journey of figuring it out. I hadn’t figured coaching at that time; I hadn’t thought about all of that. But I only knew that there could be a different way of working, and that’s how I started my company initially in India, and in India, it’s still called Green Minds. I felt like when you start being in sync with your mind and when you know exactly what you want, then you figure paths that are unique to yourself, right? That’s where it started.
Human Systems at Work is an extension of that, saying how can workplaces be more human. This means you still perform. So, people sometimes get the question like, “Okay, are we then becoming too soft? Are we going to perform? Are we going to even achieve results?” But yes, because the more you are human at workplaces, what we’re seeing shift happen is people now feel they belong, they feel more engaged, they feel valued, and thereby increasing productivity. It doesn’t feel like pressure anymore, you know? So, they’re becoming resilient. This is all the work that I do.
Oh my god! I love all of what you’re talking about! It really is a big part of my value system as well, Abi. Because, you know, if you can create a culture where you work where people are truly happy and feel valued, it changes the game on efficiency, productivity, longevity, innovation, and all the things that we need in today’s world, right?
So true!
Yeah, absolutely! So, let me ask you this, so that people truly understand exactly what Human Systems at Work does, can you share the theory of that? What is that process? What does it look like?
Yeah, so I work with organizations in two capacities. One is helping the leaders understand the culture that’s there in the organization, and also to see how this can be different when we bring a human-centric approach into the mix. So, there is a piece of that, and there’s also working with the leaders in becoming this because humans are also victims to patterns and how we’ve always functioned, right?
There is always the thing of, “I want to change, but then it’s too difficult to change, and this is easy, so let me continue.” The shift here is how do you help these leaders recognize that and see the value of taking a new approach.
I also work with teams, so I do team coaching as well, helping teams build safety within themselves. We’ll talk more about it as we move. But just getting people to understand that there is, flipping some of those mindsets and belief systems that they’ve carried which aren’t rewarding anymore or aren’t working anymore, right?
So those are the ways I kind of help organizations. I have a human-centric leadership framework, which is very different from any leadership program that someone would have gone through. It’s like a nice journey within themselves, but those are the things that I do.
I love it! So what I’m hearing you say, Abi, is that you help people reframe from their experiences, how to better articulate, and also step into the version of themselves that actually gives them the results they’re looking for rather than staying in these, kind of, conditioned patterns of culture and society, etc. I mean, it gets complicated, right?
Yes, it does!
I have a human-centric leadership framework, which is very different from any leadership program that someone would have gone through. It's like a nice journey within themselves.
So let me ask you this, I’d love for you to share a case study so that everyone watching, listening, and reading this can get a real-world understanding of what the process is because I think that’s going to be really valuable for everyone.
For sure! I can take an example of a team that I worked with to build a case here. So, the team here had been a team for a long time, right? They worked with each other, but there was this heaviness and this sense of, “you know what? It’s difficult to get results done. There are too many conversations happening, too much unproductive time waste that they were sensing and experiencing.”
Now, when I started working with this team, and all of them are a group of leaders in the organization, what we kind of unpacked is there are so many unsaid things, right? So many assumptions made, so many communications that were just missing because you felt like this might not land well. So, there is this perception, it was all muddled together, and the chaos was getting created because of that. They felt they were safe; they felt that psychological safety existed, but then it wasn’t really true, and they hadn’t even sensed that at that time, right?
So, the moment I started working, I started seeing these dynamics shift within the team. Slowly, we created a space where everybody was able to say, also keeping in mind others, and bringing the human element. So, how do you bring your whole self to work? That was literally what we did, right? When you bring your whole self to work, you, of course, come with your flaws and your bests and your need to be better and whatever. When people see that, they are no longer judging you, and you’re not fearing the judgments in that space, right?
Literally, I think everybody dropped the heaviness, and then they started functioning together. Today, the team is going through massive changes, and they are doing it like pros. There is no more, “Oh my god!” They feel lighter working with each other. So, just one of these examples. Of course, there are many more that I can keep sharing with you.
Of course! So, it’s really interesting because what I’m hearing you say here is that you are asking specific questions that perhaps they weren’t asking themselves.
Absolutely!
And you know, when you don’t hear that voice in your head or you’re kind of—it’s a blur in your head because you have all the heaviness of all of the things that aren’t working, so it’s like this fog that you have, right?
Yes!
I feel that what you do, what your company does here with teams, is you ask the appropriate questions so that they can lift that fog and actually get to work in bettering the situation, whether that’s partly them, whether that’s people they work with, or whether it’s the culture that they’re working in. So, it becomes quite layered, right?
Absolutely! And I call this program specifically “Dancing with the Difference.” It’s about just embracing differences and understanding that the difference will still remain different, but you can still work through that. You can find ways to bring balance, you know?
Absolutely! And that’s why a person would work with someone like you. So, let me ask you this Abi, who is your ideal client for this specific process?
Yeah, an ideal client would be, you know, an organization that’s looking to create better results and rather sustained results over a period of time. They are probably finding challenges within their organization to create, you know, a value or co-creation. That’s one.
Leaders who are looking to create better impact, right, within their teams and for themselves, or teams which are going through change, for example. The old ways don’t work anymore, and they need to find newer ways, right? So, from an overall threading perspective, it’s like people who want to create change, a change that is needed during times of uncertainty, right?
Because the change really here is about self and what the future really wants and who are the leaders the future really wants. They are leaders who are more human, people who can understand, who they can really relate to and connect with.
I want to share this: one of these Gartner reports talks about the top few things, and the first thing is hope. Employees today are looking for hope in organizations, right? So, who can give them hope in uncertainty? It’s only a leader who understands what the opposite person needs, not just the goals and numbers. So, there is that. These are all my ideal clients.
I love it because it kind of translates over into this program that you have called Resilient Flow. Can you share a little bit about, you know, why you created it? Because I feel it came from some of these experiences that you have, and, you know, what does it teach people?
Okay, great question. Thank you for that. I’ll explain this in two parts. You know, there is resilience and there is flow. The reason why I, and when we think about flow, a state of flow is, you know, being in your best self, being productive, challenging yourself enough, and also always feeling lighter, calm, and, you know, all that, right?
Resilience is about bouncing back and things like that. But in reality, if you see, people who are successful are always resilient. The fall doesn’t seem like a fall, or the no’s don’t seem like no’s. They are pretty much unstoppable, I would say, right? They are creative; they’re finding ways to go past things.
Now, when I say resilient flow, I talk about how do you keep resilience in a state of flow? So, what do you do to be using resilience as your anchor and keep moving forward? The flow is an acronym that I’ve used. Even though it kind of resonates with the state of flow and it matches, it’s an acronym of how the process is.
So, anyone who’s participating in Resilient Flow, well, I’ll help them to unpack those patterns, those, you know, things that hold them back, and then find ways to let new things in and even become more intuitive, right? Like, as humans, the biggest guiding light we always have is our intuition, and the worst time of uncertainty or fall could be tapping into that. So, the program kind of helps them to stay tuned to themselves and actually find ways to keep going with flow.
Resilience is about bouncing back and things like that. But in reality, if you see, people who are successful are always resilient. The fall doesn't seem like a fall, or the no's don't seem like no's. They are pretty much unstoppable, I would say, right? They are creative; they're finding ways to go past things.
I love it! So, let me break this down a little bit for everybody so that they can understand. Is this a program that you do in a workshop environment in person, or is this something that people can access in their own time online? Let’s break some of this down for people.
This is a workshop that I host, of course, and this is more like a learning experience alongside group coaching. So, it’s more like a conversational format. I don’t have it as a virtual learning piece, but they do have pieces that they do on their own while they go through this program. So, it’s more about holding the space for them, right? It’s that energy that shifts them out of being stuck to, you know, removing the fog. I use that word in my session as well—like getting out of the fog and going with the flow.
Oh my god, I love it! So, how long is this workshop? You know, when’s the next one, and how do people sign up? Let’s share it and get people in there that need this.
Yeah, it’s a couple of hours workshop, so it’s done over a period of two or three sessions. I am hosting one in the summer, using the summer as your time to build resilience. I would share more details with you, and it’s virtual, it’s online, so anyone can sign up. I look forward to it, and it really changes people to feel like, okay, I’m no longer alone. I have myself, you know, at the end of the program. In fact, I recently ran it for the Toronto Public Library, and the comments that people said were, “I feel a lot lighter. I feel like I am not alone, and I know what I need to do.” Simple, right?
Oh my gosh, I love it! So, when you have the exact dates and information, we will share it with our audiences. Guys, if you haven’t already signed up for our free weekly newsletter membership, can you please go to theopenchestconfidenceacademy.com and make sure that you do that?
The reason is that everybody who becomes a free member of our newsletter gets these special emails that we send out when there are specific coaches, like Abi, partnerships that we do where you get access directly to these types of programs.
It is so much easier for you to get them when you sign up with us because we do many partnerships like this than to try and find someone out there for this that hasn’t been vetted, because we do the vetting process as well, which is really important. So, make sure you go and do that.
Abi, I want to ask you this before we move on to the next piece, how can people contact you or your company in regards to coming in as a team coach and also for signing up for the program? So, two separate entities there.
Yeah, so my website is called humansystemsatwork.ca, and, you know, all of these events that I put up are available on there, all the programs that I do as well. And, of course, my LinkedIn—I write on LinkedIn. I write a newsletter called Human-Centric Workplaces, so I keep sharing, you know, a lot of insights there too.
I am building an online community called the Human Leaders of the Future, so that’s something that’s coming up very soon, and that’s this year’s launch for me. I would share information on that also on my sites, on my LinkedIn, and with you also, Raj.
Of course, I can’t wait for that! And these are the things that I love about women leaders. You know, back in the day, you would always hear women fighting, and not supporting each other because of the way that the institutions of work are set up by men for men.
But now that there are so many more women in leadership positions, right, and are leading with their own feminine traits in addition to their masculine traits. I’ve talked about this many times with you guys, you know how I feel about this. This is not a, you know, leadership is not a gender play; it is a skill set play, and you need as much of your masculine and feminine qualities and values in order to be a resilient leader, right?
Abi, let me ask you this because I feel this beautifully kind of leans into my next question, which is confidence is a big part of the resilient mindset, can you share that piece for everyone?
For sure, and great question, Raj, because, you know, it’s like the two sisters together, right? It’s like that. Now, when we really talk about confidence, it’s not the environment. Most times, what people mistake is finding confidence from outside. If you did this to me, I’ll feel more confident. If you did that to me, I would feel a lot more confident. If this happened to me, I think so. The narratives are more outward-driven, and when we flip it, that’s when you become more resilient because now the confidence is all about you.
While technically we know confidence is about you, in reality, you always feel confident only when you have something like, and I put on this dress. It’s always that.
So, in the work that I do, I help people to step into their own inner space of confidence and also find out what’s hindering that. It could have just been like a past something, you know, a comment by a teacher made in your kindergarten, or it could have just been something that you’ve held on to without realizing that it’s impacting you even today, right? So, the coaching process kind of helps you to break those barriers for yourself.
And another simple thing I say, you know, we can always feel fear and not try, and then you can try and fail. But here, the difference is you’ve tried, and there is learning from that. The other space is just sitting with yourself, not trying, right? So, the resilience and confidence kind of go that way for me.
So, I feel like you become unstoppable if you are able to tap into those energies of yourself, and everybody has a unique style to it, right? No two people show the same. So, that unique style, I think, really plays out, you know, when you do the inward reflection.
As humans, the biggest guiding light we always have is our intuition, and the worst time of uncertainty or fall could be tapping into that. So, the program kind of helps them to stay tuned to themselves and actually find ways to keep going with flow.
Absolutely, I agree. I’d love an example of this in a real-life situation, Abi, so we can see how it works. Is there, maybe, a client or someone that came to you and went through this program, and there was just this major shift that you saw happening from beginning to end? Like, anything like that, just so that people can conceptualize how this works in a real-life situation?
Yeah, I can share about one of the leaders, you know. I mean, there are many, but I can share this one specific one that I’ve worked with quite a couple of years ago as well. So, she works in one of these large multinational companies, and then, of course, like you said, women leaders and organizations sometimes can be challenged in many ways. Just believing that maybe this isn’t my space or, you know, I don’t belong in this level or things like that, right?
But there is this desire to be this senior leader, and all of it. And then you give it up because you feel things don’t work out or I am not. And usually, the inward reflection is, “Oh, maybe I am not the best fit there,” right? It’s never, when it’s negative; it’s always you. When it is something that you want from outside, it’s always from outside, you know?
So, in this situation, she was struggling with this and she said, “You know what? I just want to survive in this organization, and I don’t want anything beyond. From there, she started seeing what are the things that she is just in an autopilot talking to herself, and believing them, which isn’t true.
So we took her through the process, and then finally she landed up, of course, becoming now two or three levels above where she was when she started working with me.
When I say the human aspect to this, really, humans always, as humans, all of us always want to grow. We always want to have calm; we want to always grow. At the same time, we also want to be challenged, in the right way. Now, when you tap into that, you’re no more bothered by the things outside; you are more driven by what you want to achieve. So that’s what this leader worked on, and she saw confidence, she saw, you know, even her decisions aligning so much to her vision of where she wants to be, right?
So yeah, this is for anyone who’s ever thought: “Is this even for me?” or “Am I even worth it?” or “Am I even ready?” or “How much do I need to learn?” From “That’s too overwhelming” to “I can do this,” you know?
And that’s a massive shift, especially for women. We all know the statistics out there regarding women. We have this ideology that we’re only good enough if we’re perfect. And, perfection is what? What does it even mean, right?
Because what’s the next perfect? That’s really what perfect is, right? Like, you’re all, it’s the thing that you never get to, um, and you should never get to because perfection is the state of mind that you’re currently in if you’re doing the work to make the best version of yourself actualize.
And, you know, this is the kind of work that, um, Abi does. You guys already know this is the work that I do, but I want to, um, you know, lean in a little bit to the coaching element of this because, oftentimes people aren’t sure if coaching is for them. They don’t understand what coaching, what the value proposition is. They don’t know the difference between coaching, consulting, mentoring, therapy, all of these things. And I want to actually tap into all of these things with Abi.
So Abi, before we do that, actually, let’s just round up and let everyone know again how they contact you for the work that you do, with companies and the work that you do with individuals.
Right, so for the company, humansystemsatwork.ca is where all the work that I do in organizations exists. And, https://www.abirambika.com/, of course, my personal website is something through which I do work with individual clients, individual leaders even within organizations outside. And, of course, my LinkedIn, and the space that I’m creating for leaders. And most times when leaders feel alone and they don’t want to talk about their growth and leadership within the organization because of the fear of judgment, they want to work with coaches who are leadership coaches in organizations outside, and that’s the work that I do too.
So that’s perfect. So you heard it right here, guys. If this is something you feel you want to know more on, just hit up Abi and just go say hello on LinkedIn. That’s, I think, a great way to start.
So now that you know the world of expertise and experience that Abi comes from, let’s dive into the topic of today’s show and let me just reframe and say what that is again to remind you why personal coaching is a game changer to building confidence.
So Abi, this is a big one. You and I know this, right? Because it, you know, it is often overlooked or it’s underestimated, right? And it is definitely underrepresented. It’s a big thing.
Research has shown many, many times that this is the reason, the crux of the reason that women don’t step into higher leadership positions, as the president of the International Coach Federation’s Toronto chapter Abi, let’s break this down, okay? Right, you ready?
Absolutely, let’s do it.
Most times, what people mistake is finding confidence from outside. If you did this to me, I'll feel more confident. If you did that to me, I would feel a lot more confident. If this happened to me, I think so. The narratives are more outward-driven, and when we flip it, that's when you become more resilient because now the confidence is all about you.
Why is personal coaching advantageous to building a ‘confidence mindset’? I just feel that’s such a big one.
Yeah, personal coaching is, like the word says, it’s personal, right? Like no two people are the same, and that’s what I mean. Of course, you have training and you have all of the other modalities of development, but what this does is really help someone to understand their own personal fears, their own beliefs, right?
And I usually use this metaphor of an iceberg to help people see what a coaching conversation really does, what it does is it helps them see their own blind spots, find what’s under, and that kind of shifts them, builds confidence, become more resilient, and you create strategies which are truly what you can do.
Like, there’s always merit to listening to a TED talk or listening to some motivational speakers and trying to adapt. Why do people struggle there, right? Why do they struggle even though the strategy sounds so good? It’s because it isn’t connecting to you. Personal coaching helps you to connect to you in a true sense.
Absolutely. Oh my god, that’s just absolutely ‘it’ in a nutshell, guys. So let me ask you this, the coaching industry has grown in leaps and bounds over the past decade. We know this, right? It is statistically the second largest growing industry in the world, second only to tech, and it is projected to grow exponentially over the next decade. So many people are jumping on the coaching bandwagon as coaches, you know this, Abi, as do I, without actually having a certification to coach.
So I want to ask you this because I feel this is really, really important, and it’s important because a lot of people don’t know how to qualify a coach when they are going to find one. Why is it important to get a qualification before you coach the public?
Yeah, we are impacting lives, right? As coaches, the work that we do is really helping people change. So yesterday I had written about this as well, to say when we work with someone, we’re not just working with that one person; we’re creating a ripple effect, right – how they show up at work, how they lead, how they interact with family. Coaching is deeply sensitive work.
We’re pretty much working with actual, such a sensitive aspect in coaching here, and a certification ensures that you practice ethically. You use the right mastery, or you have the right standard to even do that. So, it’s not about getting something shot down because when it’s personal coaching and someone is really going to change based on what we’re doing, the work has to be done in the best and the most ethical way.
That’s the key right there, and that’s the thing with the International Coach Federation; it’s considered the gold standard of coaching. It’s been around for a very long time. Abi, can you share a bit about the organization?
I think it’s important because a lot of people don’t understand that the greatness of an organization like this, having been around for as long as it has, smoothed out all of the kinks in procedure and policy, and it polices what we are and are not allowed to do. Talk to us a little bit about this.
Yeah, absolutely. I think, when I first came across ICF, I was actually quite amazed because there are a lot of people who do call themselves coaches, right? And then there’s this body. I’m like, “Ah, is this something that I need to do?” But then when I did my research, I spoke to coaches at the time, and I understood that it’s very different.
Like I said, I want to piggyback on ethical practices. When you have a global standard set, and I have to tell you this: when I moved from India to here, I was a coach of the standard. I straight away came in and jumped in and started coaching. I didn’t need any re-credentialing; I didn’t need anything because I had already done that.
So, there is this huge global standard that’s being set by ICF, and of course, you know, it has its own core competencies, ethical practices, and there is a quality and consistency. More than anything, it becomes such a professionalism that’s brought into the coaching practice that all of us who are credentialed through ICF follow those structures.
And like you rightly said, ICF has an ethical board. So, any client who feels like, “Hey, have I got the right structure input?” They’re always free to go and ask ICF. There’s also this nice line that they draw between coaching, consulting, therapy, and all of that, so the coach really knows that “Hey, I draw this line very clearly, so the client is always served well.”
So that’s the most important thing, when the client needs to be served well, you need to be ready to be serving that well, right? Like, suddenly one day if you feel like, “Huh, this could be a good process,” I can’t put that on the client because it isn’t proven; it isn’t tested. This is something that’s tested and tried, and that’s why it’s very important to be a credentialed coach.
When we work with someone, we're not just working with that one person; we're creating a ripple effect, right? How they show up at work, how they lead, how they interact with family, etc. Coaching is sensitive work.
Absolutely. So, just to encapsulate that for everyone, why is an ICF coach the right choice for people to coach with over non-certified coaches? You’ve already answered this; let’s encapsulate it.
Yeah, it’s, I would say, an industry recognition, right? And a credential, which creates credibility for someone. So, when they, in fact, many of I had a conversation with someone this morning, and they were asking me the same question. They’ve been coaching but then wanted to know if they want to . . .
So I said most organizations now look for people with ICF credentialing, and why are they doing that? Because they want to have these standard professional people coming in and doing similar work with everybody in the organization. So that’s definitely why getting a coach credentialing and working with clients is just doing the right thing, I would say.
Absolutely. And as an ICF trained and certified coach myself, Abi, I found the greatest value in learning this skill is knowing the boundaries that you’ve been talking about within the coaching being policed.
There is a hard line that people don’t know out there outside of our industry between what is coaching, what is consulting, what is mentoring, and what is therapy—lines that cannot be crossed, which non-certified coaches aren’t bound by. Therefore, they blur these lines, which can be very dangerous. Why is this a problem, Abi? Talk to me about that a little bit.
Like you rightly said, I think sometimes we can just overstep into a mental health space or advice, right? We might just overstep unknowingly and lead to confusion and not give the right help that the client needs. We’ve had so many coaches who know after a couple of sessions we experience that the client really needs therapy now or needs to be referred to a counsellor.
Then we do that, and that’s something we’ve been guided with, and we know when to do that, right? So it’s like, you can’t harm the client in any way. Keeping that in mind and doing the best thing that the client needs is always recognizing that and noticing yourself, like how this is panning out for both, right?
For sure, I would keep reiterating that being a professional coach comes with a lot of work, and Raj, you would know this.
Yes, maintaining a credential with ICF is no joke, right? Continuous work, and we keep learning, and we keep re-credentialing, which means our credential stands for three years, and we need to re-credential, which means for the three years we are still working on ourselves.
So, it’s a continuous learning process that we’ve done, which helps us to stay relevant, stay with the highest standards of how to help the clients.
Absolutely. And you know, while you were talking, a thought came into my mind, which I hope is going to help people truly understand why coaching is a very unique methodology for people. And I’ve shared this a number of times, but I feel like it’s a good moment for me to share that now. Coaching is a collaborative workplace, right? It’s collaborative. So what you’re doing is you’re collaborating with your client and the other.
So that’s the first thing. The second thing is that when you truly are coaching, you actually aren’t giving advice. That’s the key that a lot of people don’t understand because that’s called consulting, right?
Coaching is where you’re asking the appropriate questions after getting all of the information that you need on the client, the issue, or challenge that they’re facing, whatever that may be that they’ve shared, and you are asking the appropriate questions because you’re trained to know how to ask those questions, and that’s a whole other podcast, which, Abi, you got to come back on for us to talk about that. And the goal at the end of the session is for the client to have figured out their answers.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Do you want to add to that, Abi?
For sure. I mean, and it’s also connecting to what we’ve been speaking about, saying every unique person knows the answers to their questions, right? And to their problems. Now, it’s so difficult to just sit on yourself and leave all your emotions and have this mirror in front of you and say, “Hey, I’m going to figure this out,” or self-coach.
So when you work with a coach, what you really do is unpack those, and then create those actions and behavioural changes, which are lasting and feel so connected to you. Otherwise, it’ll be like, “Okay, I would start this; I’ll do it a couple of times, and then you drop it,” right? So this is not about learning; it’s about really changing from you, changing things, or changing yourself, and that’s hard.
Confidence is in you, and by just being resilient and listening deeply really shifts big things. It moves mountains.
It is hard, and this is why I think self-coaching is wonderful. I know from my perspective, my mother’s Hindu, my father’s Sikh, and one thing that I’ve learned from being brought up in both of those cultural religions, ’cause they are cultural religions, is this ever idea of understanding who you are in every stage of life that you’re going through and how that is impacting the world around you. And so that’s the self-coaching ideology as well. But there’s only, but even in that, you need a quote-unquote ‘guru’, right?
So, this is where the certified coach comes into play. Your thoughts on that, Abi? Because this is how I explain it to clients that don’t quite understand, and then they get it. It’s like, “Yeah, I get it. It’s like, the teacher and student relationship,” right?
Yes, yes. And you know, when we work with the coach—and I work with a coach myself too—so everybody needs a coach, you know, I do too, right? So what the coach really does is take you on a path of clarity that is not so visible and evident normally. And that clarity is just going to save you time, cost, money, wrong experiences, wrong decisions.
So you are literally speeding up the process to success in that way by working with a coach. And for me, I can say that confidently, Raj, having moved here in two years, what I’ve done so far in two years has also, thanks to my coach, right?
Because understanding a new market, all of this, she helped me with the right approaches. I did the right things, and today I am here doing what I do, and it is not easy. So, when you want to speed up things or when you want to really do it in the best intuitive way, I think working with a coach really adds value.
Absolutely. So, let’s ask the question, when do you know that it’s actually ‘coaching’ that you need? Like, what should be the questions people are asking themselves to know that that’s what they actually need?
When they feel stuck. I want to start by saying that when they feel like they want more clarity, when they feel they’re struggling to make decisions, when they feel there’s too much fog and uncertainty, and they want to really ask those answers and create a better life.
I mean, I also say this, sometimes we want a better life; we do. We don’t know what a better life is. So, they don’t know, when we are literally feeling like we don’t know a lot of things, that’s when you should, you know, ask for a coach.
Absolutely. So why is – you’ve answered this, but I want to encapsulate this for everyone because we’ve shared a lot of information with everyone. Why is hiring a coach advantageous? Like, what’s the value proposition? Are there any statistics you can share also to maybe help people understand that better?
I’ll start with your confidence, um, itself, Raj. Like, ICF does quite a lot of research, and one of the reports says that 80 percentage of their clients have shared that their confidence improved, and that’s a huge amount of people coming back and saying our confidence has improved, right? And then, 70 percentage of people have said their work performance has improved.
And there are a lot of stats if you really see, so they feel like working with coaches has shifted their life in so many ways, improved their self-awareness, performance, resilience, change leadership, adaptability, so all of those which helps anyone coaching really helps them to do that. And there are stats which everybody can find online, yes, to this credit.
Absolutely. And you know, I always find that with women, it’s even more, right? It’s even, confidence is, or lack thereof, imposter syndrome, all these things are even more so with women because there’s just this innate thing that we do.
And I found this, more so, the more successful a leader a woman is, is that she questions herself more as she’s going up that ladder, which has its pros and its cons. The cons being it could potentially stop her from stepping into that next big milestone of her life. What would you say to those women?
I think, just take a pause, right? Like, in life, I think we keep running, um, right? While to speed up, you need to slow down. That’s what I want to say. And each of these coaching sessions are literally your slowdowns. So, every hour you spend with a coach and talking, you’re literally listening.
I have this program also called, Listening to Change, Raj, which is basically just listening deeply and helping them to see what’s coming up for them, right? What’s the next best thing that’s coming up? And these coaching sessions are listening sessions; it’s helping you deepen your awareness. So that’s what I would say: just pause to speed up.
Yes, I love that! It is the big nugget of the show I feel, pause to speed up. So, Abi, oh my gosh, we are getting ready to close off, and I feel like I have a thousand more questions to ask you. So, you know you have to come back on, right?
For sure, absolutely!
Oh my gosh, is there anything that we haven’t talked about around this subject matter that you feel you’d like to share to close off? Any words of wisdom, anything at all?
I can share – because I study Buddhism and I bring an aspect of that into my work as well. Every human has this original nature to keep becoming better and doing things in the right ways. It’s just that things cloud, and we miss the path sometimes, right? And then we feel stuck. So, what I want to leave your audience with is to say that confidence is in you, and just being in that resilience and listening deeply really shifts big things. It moves mountains, I would say.
So, I want to leave everybody by saying just notice that. Just sit with yourself, pause, see that there are opportunities out there, and, you know, just connect with them. Just listen to them, experience them, and just connect with them. I also bring this universe into all of what I do, and I feel like every connection we make is a blessing from there. So, I would also say that just trust that. Just trust that things will happen, and it does always happen.
So what the coach really does is take you on a path of clarity that is not so visible and evident normally. And that clarity is just going to save you time, cost, money, wrong experiences, and wrong decisions.
Amen to that! Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your insights, Abi. I mean, there is so much to think about, to glean from, to ponder. You are a woman to admire, and for all the right reasons. I sincerely thank you for coming on; I really, really do. Folks, please make sure that you go and say hello to Abi. Go to her LinkedIn, start there.
Thank you so much, Abi, and please come back on. We’ve got so much more to talk about.
For sure. I really want to thank you; I think your questions were beautiful. It was so good; it really got me thinking and opening my mind as well. The work you do, Raj, is phenomenal, so I have to really thank you for having me, and I look forward to the many things that we can do together.
Oh my god, I can’t wait! My brain is buzzing. Thank you so much, Abi.
And I will see everyone next time with another insightful episode, just like this one. Transform Your Confidence, the podcast folks, you can go hangout with us on YouTube at The Open Chest Confidence Academy. You can also go to The OpenChestConfidenceAcademy.com to sign up for our freebies, our free newsletter. Be a part of our community.
And please stay connected with us on our socials at @The Open Chest Confidence Academy and theopenchestconfidenceacademy.com website where you can find out different ways that you can work with me and our team. See you next time.
To contact Abirambika Ravivarman: LinkedIn
