Author: jeniwag

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Alumni Spotlight: Amber

Vancouver Island, Canada

Coaching for Complexity participant, 2023

Tell us a bit about yourself! What’s your story?

I am so many things but identify mostly as a plant woman, who feels like our connection to nature is deeply and inextricably linked with our connection to self and other. I am an herbalist, nature connection facilitator, rites of passage facilitator, educator, surfer, writer poet, grief and death doula, acroyogi, yoga and meditation teacher, and human animaI. I have spent years no trying to find the pathways to helping facilitate the healing of ourselves and our planet. I have moved through many different places and modalities to figure out what works, and what medicine I want to bring to this world most. Alternative and outdoor-based youth education has been a passion of mine for awhile, as well as eco-pyschology, plant medicine, somatics, conscious dance, and the ritual arts. I love working with women and young folks especially, in group and 1-1 settings. I also believe death and grief work is an essential piece of our collective cultural healing puzzle, and after losing so many loved ones in a short amount of time, I am on the path of bringing that medicine into my life and the lives of those around me as well.

What drew you to become a coach?

I’ve been trying to find ways to offer my holistic health and somatic therapeutic services to adults but not as a clinical counselor or psychologist, and with more possibility.

What do you say at dinner parties when people ask “what do you do?”

I facilitate alternative, experiential and nature based youth programming that include leadership, community building, and social-emotional skill development. I am also an herbalist and somatic practitioner, as well as yoga and acro-yoga teacher.

What matters to you in life?

What matters most to me is to be able to live in the present as much as I can, through connection to other beings of the world via the gifts of my animal body and senses. My hope is to learn and teach how to come more fully into my/our body(ies) and experience the depths of grief but also of love and joy and play. Creative expression, the movement arts, and nature connection practices are essential, as well as building and living in community grounded in conscious living and regenerative, permaculture practices.

How did you know it was the right moment for you to pursue a coaching certification?

I had this training come to me directly and it was through channels I trusted, and I had the time, finances, and space to pursue it. However it was also the description of this particular training that captured me most and made me say yes right now.

What made you decide to go with Global Focus Coaching? How do your values align with GFC’s programs?

I was drawn to GFC because I knew there was shared values and world views, and I was attracted to a training that centered decolonization and intercultural competence, as well as somatic work since that is already a part of my practice. Also, Jenny and Briana seemed like excellent people and teachers.

What have been your biggest challenges on your coaching journey?

Struggling with the term ‘coaching’, what coaching is to me, and what the preconceptions around coaching are.

What has been the most rewarding parts of your coaching journey?

Seeing clients feel supported and come in deeper connection with themselves, and through this creating positive movement in their lives in an intentional way.

What is the most important thing you learned from the program?

How to come into deep attunement with the client and skillfully reflect themselves back to them, as well as how to stay aware of my own blind spots, biases, and triggers while coaching.

How has coaching helped you so far? Where do you see coaching fitting into your life in the long term?

Coaching has helped me put so many of my skills into a new practice that is very rewarding and pull of potential. I see myself using my coaching skills in combination with my herbal medicine and nature therapy practice, and creating a fuller practice of holistic therapy and somatic coaching.

What did you wish you had known before starting your coaching journey?

That coaching gives you so many important, transferable skills.

Where can we learn more about you?

You can find me at www.amberaislin.com, where I offer somatic & holistic health coaching as well as grief tending work.

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What’s In A Resume?

Hillary Sites
How do I cram 20 years worth of work onto two pages? I value being humble and don’t want to come off as arrogant with my work? Should my skills and experience go at the top? What if I don’t have a degree? I don’t have that much work experience, what do I do? Does the format matter?
 
These are just some of the questions I hear when working with people on their resumes. And I get it, it can be super hard to condense things down when our professional lives are usually chocked full of too many daily tasks. Thankfully there are some pretty simple guidelines to follow that can help you start this process.  I came up with the below list as these are the most common mistakes I see and though it would be helpful to share! For more detailed advice please don’t hesitate to contact me!
 

Resume Dos:

  1. Tailor your resume to each specific job you are looking at. People in HR see thousands of resumes, if they have to dig for your skills you are going to be rejected. You want to draw the shortest possible line between your experience and the job you are trying to get.
  2. Make sure the language of the job description is used in your resume. E.G.- If they list specific responsibilities or preferred qualifications, and you fit them, highlight that directly.
  3. Make your resume short enough to be digestible (1-2 pages)
  4. If you add an “other relevant skills” section make sure it is still speaking to the job or is universally useful. Other languages, medical certifications, publications, patents, a memorable unique skill. Those are great. Things like “great communicator and avid hiker” are not as useful.
  5. Use data – if you have something measurable to prove you can do a job say it. This doesn’t have to be complicated either, if you have managed budgets say the amounts, if you have trained faculty how many people annually, things like that are helpful context.
  6. Meet most of the minimum qualifications they are looking for. Resumes can be screened out by not meeting them.

Resume Don’ts:

  1. Don’t spend time/space explaining the nature of the company you work for, what it does, the company goals, etc…. Instead focus on your skills and experiences.
  2. Don’t lie. Don’t say you created something that in reality took a whole team. That’s usually pretty obvious.
  3. Don’t narrow your resume by using industry specific jargon. Do use your proper title, but education vs. tech vs. government vs. finance vs. health – all have slightly different ways they qualify employees. Research this, it will also help you apply for jobs you might have a shot at getting.
  4. Don’t go back too far in your job history or have it be too random. This depends on age but you basically want 10 +/- years of relevant work experience highlighted. Not your total life’s work.
** Last 2 Tips: Don’t limit yourself to an industry. If you have worked in media production you might not think health or tech companies would look for that but they do.  If you need a job, don’t apply for 5, apply for 50 across all fields. You might find something really unique.
 
Best of luck!
Hillary
 

This blog post is from Hillary Sites, a member of the Global Focus Coaching Advisory Board. Hillary is a People Operations professional who currently works at Strategy and Program Operations Manager at Google.