From Classroom to Coaching Cabin via the dreaded Hot Desk!

It was a scarily long time ago that I was considering options for my future career. 40 years ago, a career was for life and options for women were severely restricted. Many of the jobs that exist today were not even an idea in the head of an enthusiastic entrepreneur! This was 1980.

Told I was too academic to be a Florist but not clever enough to be a Speech Therapist, my careers teacher basically suggested that if I liked children (I did…), that I should be a teacher. Always a generalist rather than a specialist, I opted for Primary Teaching with my ‘Subject’ as Education Studies – a mix of Psychology, Philosophy and Sociology that had me interested, confused and bored – in that order. The fact that I had always hated school didn’t come into the equation!

Four years later, having loved my practical placements and scraped through my coursework and exams, I emerged with a B.Ed Honours degree and Qualified Teacher Status. I also emerged with an amazing friendship group and an intimate knowledge of the pubs of Winchester, most of which were experienced in fancy dress (or so the photos would seem to suggest).

I had a great career in teaching, learning a huge amount about how children learn and flourish as well as what gets in the way. I learned how to build rapport and relationships with everyone I met along the way – children, colleagues, leaders, parents and other professionals and most of all, I learned about myself. How I was happy to ‘perform’ at the front of the class, to take assemblies, lead productions, speak up in meetings but also, I needed to walk alone every lunchtime and shut my classroom door at the end of the day. My career also took me way out of my comfort zone when I spent 2 years in a school in Germany on a British Army base. I lived in the Officers Mess and did some living!

But 2 years was as much as I could take – I was never a natural party animal and outside work, the real me just wanted to crash out at home, sleeping, reading, crafting and occasionally meeting up with friends for a quiet drink and a good old natter. I had never labelled myself as an introvert but I think at this time, I began to see where my discomfort lay and that my awkward teenage years and my ‘fish out of water’ feelings were part of something bigger. If Susan Cain had written ‘Quiet’ in the 1990’s, I think I may have come to understand myself very much sooner and perhaps been rather easier on myself! ‘Quiet – The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking’ should be on everyone’s bookshelf!

Back in the UK I progressed up the career ladder and with leadership on the horizon, love then trumped career and my early married life was spent in Fort Lauderdale, Florida as the quietest resort wife ever! Not legally able to work, I learned the art of Patchwork and Quilting, went out on my beach cruiser bike and browsed amazing bookshops! These were the days of the original self-help books – ‘The Road Less Travelled’. ‘How to Heal Your Life’ and the game changer for me, ‘Feel the Fear and do it Anyway’ by Susan Jeffers. My self-development journey had begun!  (We did also go to the beach and sample the joys of Florida life but it wasn’t the natural habitat for an English introvert – my heart was back in the UK.)

It was to be over 10 years before I had another proper teaching contract. 18 months in a small village in Wales followed by life with small children and a husband often working away, I worked where I could, making curtains at home, a little supply teaching and even a stint selling children’s books… actually, NOT selling would be more accurate. I love children’s books but I am NOT a sales woman!

As you can imagine, working as a Life Coach was not even on the horizon, but back in the world of work, I can see now how each step I took, brought me closer. I went back to the classroom for a while but found myself always drawn to the strugglers, the children who had barriers to their learning and those who found it hard to show what they knew. The world of Special Educational Needs beckoned and was to keep me busy for the rest of my teaching career. I LOVED working with children in small groups, working one to one and building relationships with families. I loved solving puzzles, finding out what wasn’t working and why, and working with the right professionals to put the right support in place. I had my own office and I didn’t have to do playground duty! An introvert’s dream! I was going home at the end of the day with enough energy to focus on my family and I loved my work.

My family in the meantime, were a constant source of amazement. Having your own children after knowing so many belonging to others was revelatory. Seeing their personalities develop, seeing how they interacted with others and the world around them, there was definitely a pattern emerging!  School reports and parents’ evenings were always the same;

-          ‘too quiet’

-          ‘needs to contribute more’

-          ‘would do so much better if they spoke up more’

But I was never worried – I had seen this too many times and knew full well that my children were not living in a fantasy world (and yes, one particular teacher emailed me to say that), they were not unhappy, nor were they struggling. They were just quiet!  Now in their twenties, they are both happy to describe themselves as introverts, they know what they need to do to conserve their energy, what fuels them and what drains them. Both are hugely creative, both have first class honours degrees and are on their way to brilliant introvert-friendly careers and I couldn’t be prouder.

As I became more involved in SEN, I took courses that interested me and became a specialist in Dyslexia and Speech and Language Difficulties, I knew about Autism, ADHD, Inclusion and children’s mental health and wanted to help even more people. This is where the Hot Desk came in!

I took a job as an Advisory Teacher for Inclusive Practice for the County, based in the local Education Office. For much of the time, I was out and about, in schools, working with children, parents and teachers and delivering training. But I can still hear the voice in my head, the first time I set foot in the huge, open plan, artificially lit office. ‘I don’t want to work here!’ Walking into that room, finding myself a desk, often not knowing most people in the office that day, and the constant noise of people at work – it’s a tough place for introverts. I had to find ways to minimise the stress it caused me, using break out rooms, ringing ahead and asking for a desk to be reserved as well as going in at times of day I knew would be quiet.

In spite of this, I loved this job and my amazing team and stayed for 5 years, learning every day about managing people, listening to their stories, working on solutions to problems and helping children, families and school staff to feel empowered and able to make the changes needed for children to flourish.

The day I knew it was coming to an end is etched on my brain. The reality for children and families of children with SEN is that the system is broken. Too little money and too many pressures on teachers and schools mean that it is very, very hard for children to get the support that they need. I had been in a meeting at a secondary school where I had been advising on support for 3 pupils aged about 15. I was told that due to pressures, teachers never read the reports that I had so carefully curated to be useful and therefore hadn’t put any additional support in place. Enough said.

Later, as I was walking our dog in the woods, I had what can only be described as an epiphany; I wanted and needed my final working years to truly be of service to others. I was well into midlife, menopausal, grieving the loss of my dad, my children were living away from home and I was a bit lost. I also wanted more of this - time to be outside, in nature, alone with time to think or just to be.

My ever-supportive husband, took this in his stride and together we hatched a plan for our empty nest years. In short –

-          I quit my job

-          We sold the family house and paid off the mortgage

-          We bought a ‘doer upper’ next to the woods and got rid of many of our belongings!

-          The house came with 2 garden rooms with power and light!

-          I set myself up as a private 1:1 specialist teacher and quickly got booked up by word of mouth.

-          I took courses in mindfulness and meditation, I was in the woods every day and had never felt better.

It was then a conversation with my Mindfulness teacher that was to be the next pivotal moment. I was telling her my story and suggested that I should probably have consulted a life coach… Without hesitation, she said ‘but Jo, you don’t NEED a life coach – you should BE a life coach! The seed was sown.

Within a few weeks I was enrolled on my first course in Life Coaching with NLP. I LOVED it! I worked with volunteer clients who made great progress and gave me great feedback. I had found ‘the thing’ that brought together all my transferable skills, drew on a lifetime of experience and was really making an impact on people’s lives. And most of all, my new working life with both adults and children was feeding my energy rather than depleting it.

It was at a face-to-face session at my coaching school that the subject of the introvert/extrovert spectrum came up. It hit me like a bolt of lightning! At last, I knew, at the grand age of 54, why I was like I was –

-          I wasn’t shy

-          or anti-social

-          or lazy

-          or aloof

-          or weird

-          or a loner

I was an introvert!

From that day, I have stood taller, felt more in tune with myself and have honoured my needs and created a life in which I am of service to others but also to myself. I have read every book written on Personality Type and Introversion and I know who I am. Like many introverts, I am not yet convinced that others understand my unique personality but that no longer worries me, because I do.

It is now 3 years since my first life coaching module and having graduated with my first Diploma, I have continued to add tools to my box and a few weeks from now, I will have graduated again as a fully-fledged heart centred coach from the Beautiful You Coaching Academy.

I am so excited to be putting myself out into the world as a Quiet Empowerment Coach, working with amazing women in midlife who want to follow their dreams, whilst also embracing and celebrating their quiet nature and respecting the needs and boundaries that all healthy introverts need in order to flourish.

I now work from my beautiful cabin in the garden, whether face to face or on Zoom, you will find me here waiting for you.

You know where to find me.

(Unless I’m in the woods!)

Jo x