Pay it forward

:In very hot shop, a carton of apple juice in my hand, running between nursery and provision of supervision, I discovered I had no wallet. Not the end of the world, but, not arriving home with that aforementioned juice would have had consequences further than the realisation of my daft ness in my inability to pay.

But they are an aside because a random stranger paid for it. With no prompting, and certainly no expectation on my part. The implications of this generosity also extended far beyond this carton of juice. On a hot and hurried day I was nudged back into that fabulous sense of ‘belief in human nature’ and I was interested in how we pay it forward.

This event also reminded me of just how much assistance and generosity and mentoring I have been in receipt of on professional journey. And as my business takes flight, I can see that it’s taken a life time of the goodwill and the generosity of professionals and ‘experts in their field’ to help me develop the 360degrees of skills that enable me to coach, supervise, and run the business effectively. 

There were teachers who believed in me and relatives who ensured I knew I had chances. There were tutors who gave me second (& third!), chances and employers who took a chance on me. There has been the NHS and also alternative healers and benefits I could claim whilst I regained my health and became strong. There have been friends who have stuck by me in the dark times or when I have behaved badly. & Believe you me I have certainly been no saint in this life!

More recently there have been ‘free courses’ and a business mentor, who having retired as the CEO of his organisation, continues to volunteer his time and expertise post-retirement,  because he enjoys sharing business start up still.

The is the generosity of the coaching world. The brilliant tutors knowldegable fellow professionals who have enough security within their own practise to share their experience strength and hope with me without ego or restraint because they know that I cannot do what they do in their way, they know I can only do it in my own.

And whilst I am fairly rigorous in giving credit where it is due, there are people who I cannot directly thank for their input, mostly because I did not recognise its value at the time and now they are gone… And this is where the pay it forward clicks in:

I now know enough to mentor others and can make myself available to those who are seeking their own confidence in this field. I can step in if I see a practical need and ask if I can be of help fulfilling it. Hence providing impromptu supervision for my driving instructor who was struggling with one of his clients…. I can be secure enough to be open and aware of the needs of friends and  indeed strangers as I walk through this world. I can hold that sense of faith in human nature and be willing to pay it forward in re way it is need most in that moment.

This is what holds us all together in humanity, the bonds we make, however fleetingly, as, we like individual molecules, share our energies for a time and make this huge and beautiful, flexible and generous structure stronger.

To learn more of working with Rebrcca click here : The Daemon Career Coach