I am sitting here at my desk and thinking that this month I am celebrating 5 years since I have started my coaching journey. Time runs. Over those past years, I overcame ups and downs and definitely improved my knowledge about running a business, marketing and of course coaching. I never imagined that I will be a business owner and I am grateful for this unexpected turning point in my professional life. Today I want to share how my journey started and 12 millstones of my coaching adventure.
1. In 2012 I was living in Manchester, UK and working in a 9 to 5 job. The company for which I was working at that time relocated to a different city and I was commuting every morning to my job. One of those mornings while waiting for the train I said to myself that there must be something more for me, that I didn’t study and invested in myself to do work which was only paying my bills. Although I was happy that I moved with my partner to Manchester and was having this international work experience I felt unfulfilled.
2. An email about 2-day free coaching course ended in my inbox. I signed up, attended the event and after that took some days to reflect if I wanted to enrol in a coaching course. I took my decision, called the coaching school and started to learn more about coaching and what I wanted to do next.
3. While still working full time and studying for my coaching diploma I started to work on my website and thinking about who and how I could help using my new skills. With my background in psychology, work experience in recruitment, sales and customer service and international life across Poland, Italy and the UK, it came clear to me that I wanted to help internationals with their career challenges. I found my niche!
4. I left my job in May 2012 and decided that I wanted to work for myself. However, I was still not sure about my decision and I was looking for a new job and also working part-time or accepting temporary assignments to have income coming in. I had also savings which I could use to support myself while working on my business. One day when I was going for a job interview I felt that I couldn’t work in an office anymore and I fully committed to my coaching business.
5. I started to network as I wanted to be surrounded by entrepreneurs and attended free courses about how to start and run a business. I also realized that it was time for me to learn more about marketing and how to get visible to my potential clients. I enrolled first in an online marketing course, then in October 2013, I started a one-year business mentoring programme which helped me to put solid structures into my coaching practice.
6. After 5 months I fully committed to the coaching business my first paying client found me on LinkedIn. I was excited.
7. In May 2014 I and my partner moved back to Rome, Italy. My partner is Italian. I lived and studied in Italy before and I was excited to come back and enjoy the sun. I relocated my coaching business to Italy, too. It took me a little bit of time to go through the administration but it was part of the learning process.
8. In March 2015 I launched The Expat Career And Lifestyle podcast for expats, digital nomads that want to have the best from their life abroad.
9. In 2015 I was awarded International Coach of The Year by The Coaching Academy. I felt that I was on the right path and confident about my next steps.
10. In June 2017 I spent two weeks in Nice, South France. I considered it as my first digital nomad adventure. Although I travelled through Italy and worked with my clients online. I realised that I actually have a digital nomad lifestyle in Nice.
11. In 2017 I was awarded as the Best Expat Coaching Firm 2017, Global Mobility Immigration & International HR Awards
12. In November 2017 I organised my first online summit called Take Your Career With You with 27 speakers from all over the world.
Those are some of my millstones during the past 5 years. My advice for you if you are thinking about starting your own coaching business or any business is to go for it. Map out your dream life vision, your business idea and think what are your financial goals and needs. Be flexible and keep in mind that it takes time to develop a business which supports you financially on a full-time basis. I have reviewed my business model a few times, moved from traditional career coaching to helping international women to find their dream career and build a portable business around their international life.
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Currently, she is enjoying a laptop lifestyle while travelling across Europe.
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