Blaze New Trails

February 15, 2018 by John Andrew Williams

14 years ago today, Amois and I were married on the beach of Playa del Carmen in the company of family and friends.

At the time she had just started her life coach training. I had just decided to continue teaching Latin rather than take a job on Wall Street.

We were young, deeply in love, and didn’t know much about the world except that we wanted to make a difference and work for the greater good.

Amois had just started her life coach training, and being 23 in a newly emerging field, she definitely faced some doubters.

“What is this life coaching thing anyway?”

“Don’t you think you should get some more life experience before you become a life coach?”

Yet Amois persisted anyway, feeling deeply called to the work.  She moved forward. She blazed the trail. She took one life coach training course, then another.

We moved across the country from Rhode Island to Portland, Oregon. I landed a job teaching Latin and decided to start getting trained as a life coach as well after seeing how influential it had been on Amois’s life and growth.

The training was transformative.

Amois’s love for me and my love for her kept us going. We were growing and dreaming and creating a life and vision we believed in.

But we faced more doubters.

“You can’t live on love and faith alone,” we heard time and again. “What happens if you fail?

”We kept moving forward. Our love and belief in the work kept us moving forward. We used our coaching skills to create a strong foundation and grow personally and professionally.

Step by step we built our life coaching practices that eventually became Coach Training EDU, that now trains hundreds of people in over 30 countries around the world.

Amois had the insight and instincts to pursue coaching before it had exploded into the field it is today. I am grateful for her support and encouragement when I felt the nudge to begin coach training as well. Getting coach trained together, has been transformational to us personally and in our marriage. Together we persisted, pursuing our dreams with a common set of tools and language to support us.

To all of you who are just starting out as coaches, who are asking yourself if you have it in you to get to the next level with your coaching practice, I encourage you to explore coach training for both yourself and your partner as well. In the big picture it’s such a small investment to the shared language and common experience you’ll gain. It has the potential of transforming your life and your relationships and taking everything to the next level.

To those of you blazing new trails, living on love and faith, to those yearning to make the world a better place pursuing coach training and asking how you can make a difference, I salute you.

Happy Valentine’s Day!