My AC Podcast Hosting Experience
In April and May, I interviewed eight influential figures in the world of career coaching, aiming to learn from the very best.
Today, I will share some highlights from these conversations, the insights I gained, and practical tips you can apply to your own career.
Hello and a very warm welcome to Episode No 72 of ‘Your Bravo Career’
My name is Mark Crossfield, I’m a Professional Career Coach / helping you to love your job and build a great career.
This podcast is about why your career matters
How you can enjoy what you are doing day each day at work
and how to build a great career along the way.
Introduction
Welcome everybody to Episode No 72
Today, I want to talk about an exciting side project I've been working on for the past few months.
So
Earlier this year, I was honoured to be asked by the Association for Coaching to host a podcast series on Career Coaching.
The Association for Coaching is dedicated to promoting best practice and raising the awareness and standards of coaching, worldwide.
As a member and Accredited coach with the Association for Coaching, I was thrilled to receive this opportunity.
Considering my involvement in co-coaching forums, engagement in the coaching community, and my experience as a successful professional career coach and podcast host, it felt like a natural fit.
Naturally, I accepted the offer.
Here's how it was set up:
The Association for Coaching commissioned a Career Coaching series consisting of eight episodes to be released weekly from June to August 2023.
The format involved me, as the host, interviewing eight highly influential individuals in the field of career coaching.
The aim was to explore the art and science of career coaching, creating an informative and enjoyable podcast series.
Undeniably, I had some initial apprehensions about taking on this series … it presented a significant undertaking.
However, with over 70 episodes of podcasting experience under my belt, I valued the opportunity to have control over the series' content and the guest experts I would be interviewing.
My goal in embarking on the project was to create a podcast that I would have loved to listen to at every stage of my career development.
I also wanted to empower more people to find fulfilment in their jobs and achieve career success.
I was supported on the project by The Association for Coaching’s Podcast Manager – Maxine Bell and the podcast was produced for the AC by Rob Lawrence.
I have to say a big thank you for their support …
So, I ended up with an impressive line-up of guests leading to enlightening conversations you are going to want to listen to.
But let’s summarise things here …
I kicked off in episode one, asking some meta questions about career coaching.
I interviewed Gill Frigerio – Associate Professor at Warwick University and a leading expert in the field of Career Studies and Coaching.
Gill talked about what career coaching is, why it’s important, some of the coaching approaches, and some of the challenges.
Gill explained why your self identify is important when you are seeking to change careers – in fact I ask several of the guests in the series about identity and I will say more about this in a moment.
In the second episode I talked with Master Coach and friend of the podcast, Kate Trafford, about
Understanding your client’s values, goals and motivations
We did talk about the book but also about how our focus tends to be on the outside, an external focuswhen we are looking for a new job or to change career. We think about what the job will be, or the promotion we seek.
When in actual fact, as Kate points out,
The big shifts in career change happen on the inside – break throughs of self-discovery and discovering who you are at your best.
And of course, this is one of the reasons to seek out a coach.
In my third episode I talked with Rob Nathan who is one of the pioneers in the field of career coaching in the UK.
Amongst other things we talked about the role of Assessment tools in Career Coaching. How these are selected and used to help clients make progress in their career journey,
So, you might be interested in this conversation.
And then,
I met with Natasha Stanley who is a career change expert with the organisation Careershifters and we talked about stepping into new careers or industries
It was quite a profound conversation ...
And we spent time talking about self-identity and why this is important. Natasha pointed out that our values, the things that are important, have often become the values of the organisation or industry – certainly from within our fixed bubble.
Because of this we lose track of our identity as other people’s voices are louder than our internal voice.
Also, that we often have fixed beliefs about who we are and what we are capable of and this holds us back from making changes in our career.
To overcome these limitations and remembering that you can’t be what you can’t see, Natasha explains that it’s important to make your bubble bigger, try new things, talk to different people and step into unknown spaces.
Natasha references a book during our conversation – it’s by Rob Walker and the title is
The Art of Noticing – I will link to the book in the show notes.
The book aims to help you get beyond daily distractions and make impactful changes in your life.
It’s a good book and worth reading.
So, that was my conversation with Natasha Stanley.
I also had a conversation about
Ethical considerations for career coaches – with Julia Menaul who is an Accredited Master Executive Coach and Coach Supervisor, and
With Salma Shah about
Strategies for working with Clients from Diverse backgrounds – Salma is an inclusion and belonging champion and author of a leading book on Diversity, Inclusion and belonging in coaching.
Salma wasn’t the first person I had contacted, to speak about diversity and inclusion, and to be honest I was apprehensive about tackling the subject.
White, middle-aged man living in the UK – not a lot of diversity and lots of privilege.
However I knew it was important for somebody like me to talk about this topic
I had done some research on Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, but I thought I better read Salma’s book before we meet.
I downloaded the book onto my kindle, and I sat down to read it.
In the book she tells her story ..
Salma’s father arrived in the UK from Pakistan with £10 in his pocket.
With nowhere to stay a Sikh man at Heathrow airport allowed him to stay at this house for a few nights.
Move forward a few years later and the family, including a young Salma, ended up in the north west of England
In Bolton of all places! Which is where I’m from.
As I continued to read …It turns out
We also went to the same school and are about the same age, Salma was the year above me at School.
I immediately thought about all that we had in common.
But here’s the rub …
Even though we had these similarities, our school experience, of those 5 years, couldn’t be more different.
Our lived experience was different
Somebody’s lived experience is like the part of the iceberg below the surface, the bit you don’t see.
I learned from Salma lots of things about myself and about being a better coach:
It’s important to acknowledge your client’s lived experience, to build psychological safety and trust, particularly with marginalised groups who don’t feel seen or heard.
This conversation is episode 6 in the series.
In the penultimate episode, I had a valuable discussion with Suzanne Penny, a seasoned career and leadership coach with extensive experience in recruitment and outplacement.
Suzanne understands the challenges of career transitions first-hand, having gone through two redundancies herself.
Suzanne offers a unique blend of practical and holistic support to help her clients find greater happiness, alignment, and empowerment in their careers.
During our conversation, we explored strategies for addressing confidence and resilience issues that often arise during career transitions.
It's common for both confidence and resilience to diminish during these times, but reframing your mindset can make a significant difference.
Suzanne guides her clients to reset their mindset at the beginning of the career transition, viewing it as an opportunity for growth.
By examining your strengths, skills, and achievements in a fresh light, you can discover new inspiration to pursue better opportunities.
This process of bringing your positives to the surface can lead to transformative career changes, allowing space for a new identity to emerge.
There’s that reference to identity again – so important in career change.
My final guest was Liane Hambly who is the author of the best-selling book, Creative Career Coaching and is an expert on career theory, creative coaching techniques and motivational theory and practice.
I talked to Liane about Professional Development and continuing education for career coaches
Liane provided valuable resources, including free online tools that can aid individuals in discovering more about themselves and identifying their ideal careers.
I will link to these in the show notes.
A couple of these resources are free online tools you can use to learn more about you and your ideal career. Highly recommended.
Free on-line matching quizzes
The series is now live, and you can find all the episodes on the Association for Coaching website, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to listen and gain insights from these remarkable guests.
I will put a link to the episodes in the show notes.
I want to again express my gratitude to the Association for Coaching, especially Maxine Bell and Rob Lawrence, for their support throughout this project.
OK, I think that will do us for today,
In today's episode, I shared my experience hosting the Career Coaching series for the Association for Coaching.
I had the privilege of interviewing eight influential experts in the field. We discussed essential topics such as self-identity, values, career transitions, diversity, and professional development.
The full series is available on the Association for Coaching website, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
Thank you for joining me, and remember, I'm here to help you love your job and build a great career.
Show Ending
Have a wonderful week and I will speak to you again in a couple of weeks time.
Bye for now.