About Ros Lee, Coach
So what brought me to coaching? Well it’s been a real journey to where I am now. I was born in the UK where I grew up in a middle class family with my brother David and my sister Pat. My parents were older than average and my mother had a chronic disability which meant that she was unable to walk far or without walking sticks. She lived in continual pain until she had both hips replaced. This gave her great pain relief and a slight improvement in mobility.
We lived a routine life as did many of our friends, and my expectation for my future was one of completing my education, getting married, having children, then retirement. I don’t think it occurred to me that life could be different. Mum and Dad had been through the war and seen and experienced a lot of hardship and to an extent I got the message that life was to be endured.
My childhood years were not unhappy. While we did not have a lot of money life at home represented security and it was always good to come home to Mum after school. I loved her shepherd’s pie and tiffin (biscuits with chocolate and golden syrup in them!!). Dad was a bit more remote than Mum – I felt his disapproval strongly and tried hard to please him. It was only as a teenager that I found the strength to stand up to him and express myself. Those were very challenging times, and I didn’t particularly understand at that time what was going on. He had very clear ideas of how things should be and I definitely inherited some of his black and white thinking!!
My educational track record was not remarkable. I completed my school education without any sense of direction or enthusiasm and went to University without knowing why. It was just what you did in those days and represented some kind of degree of intelligence to the outside world. 3 years of a Latin and Greek degree didn’t not really give me any clarity, and I drifted from that into a post-graduate administrative qualification then worked as a secretary for a number of years.
Meanwhile I had met my future husband, a Kiwi working as part of a helicopter gang in Inverness, Scotland. He was gorgeous and our relationship became marriage. I find it remarkable to think now of how it didn’t occur to me that marrying a Kiwi might mean I would start a new life on the other side of the world!! Life became daring and exciting – my husband had done a lot of travelling and hung out with interesting people. Being around helicopters was a thrill that I hadn’t experienced before.
Life wasn’t plain sailing tho and I didn’t anticipate the loneliness I would have to deal with being married to someone who spent many months each year away from home. Even before we were married my husband’s work was taking him to the Sudan and the Middle East, and somehow I didn’t want to consider the possiblity of that continuing long-term. Sure enough, we spent our honeymoon in Australia – me in Queensland and him in New South Wales, and that was a sign of life to come for the next many years. Even as I write this entry he is on a super-yacht in Alaska until mid August, while I live with our family in sunny Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand.
Dealing with long periods of separation has taught me many things. I have learned to be an independent person, not the needy person I once was. I have learned to cope with loneliness. I have raised two beautiful children to young adulthood. I retrained in a career as a software developer when my children were young in order to counteract the financial uncertainty of my husband working on contract in the aviation industry. Never knowing how long a job is going to last and being paid based on productivity, as well as dealing with the fluctuations in exchange rates, can make raise the anxiety levels very high!! I have battled with depression brought about by the loneliness, separation from family and a predisposition to see my glass as half empty rather than half full. Wanting to overcome that I have spent a lot of time studying positive psychology and teaching myself to think in a much more optimistic way about life. I learned that what we see is what we get. When we can see the possibilities in any situation then we open up a whole new way of interacting with the world and finding creative solutions to our problems.
My real ephiphany came when I attended a seminar a few years ago given by a man named Roger Hamilton. He has founded a large international network for entrepreneurs. My involvement in this group, the XL Results Foundation, has challenged me at all levels. It helped me to realise that I was living my life accidentally – in other words I wasn’t really choosing to live the way I wanted, I was existing mindlessly. Going to work in a job I didn’t really enjoy, then coming home to take on the role of both parents. I realised that it was time to make some deliberate choices, and I spent a long time examining what I really wanted to do with my life. I also learned that there is so much more to life than just our little existence, and that life can be an exciting mystery if we allow ourselves to step outside our comfort zones.
Becoming a coach was a natural conclusion as a result of my soul searching. With a passion for people and personal development, and with good communication skills and a natural curiosity, coaching seemed an obvious choice. I trained with the International Coach Academy, an ICF accredited coach training school, and have interest in a wide range of coaching areas. Naturally my own life story means that I can offer coaching support to people experiencing a wide range of personal challenges; however, the nature of coaching means that I can partner with anyone who is wanting to move forward in their life if they feel that there is a good fit with my coaching style. I offer a no-obligation “sample” phone coaching session for anyone who would like to experience coaching!! Email me at brain@mindyourthinking.com for more information.
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