By Lucy Shenouda
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I’m excited to share the origin story of FosterEssence’s emergence as a philosophy and as a professional coaching business.
During my career as a corporate professional, I experienced a world full of noise and seeming complication. Finding simplicity became a necessity for my sense of sanity and wellbeing. As the opportunity to start a professional coaching practice emerged, I began my path to coaching for impact, to building a brand philosophy and to living out mypersonal origin story. This question put me in a creative and curious state of mind:
“Isn’t life simpler than we make it out to be?
COACHING FOR IMPACT WITH … CURIOUSITY
“Isn’t life simpler than we make it out to be?”
During my early years as a marketing specialist, I sat curious, listening to many a chaotic meeting. Crises challenged our team in one way or another. And so, we have a meeting. And another. Some meetings began with no initial leadership calling the meeting to order. I’d quietly contemplate.
“Isn’t life simpler than this? What are we here for, exactly? What’s all the fuss about anyway?!”
These were the meetings that had a loose agenda.
Eventually, the discussions would quiet down. As my influence expanded and curiousity deepened, I’d find myself asking the above questions out loud. I sought to get to the essence of the meeting’s purpose. Some people called me ‘the voice of sanity’. I simply wanted to cut through the noise.
COACHING FOR IMPACT WITH … COURAGE
“What was the noise?”
The noise was deafening, and it was challenging to break through. The noise, to my overloaded senses, felt like deeply rooted complaints: “What’s not working? What went wrong? Who’s to blame? And so on.
I was more interested in: “Where are we now? Where do we want to go? and How will we get there?”
It took courage to challenge the status quo. Evolving as a leader of influence, I found the courage from within to speak up, and to break through the noise.
I was fortunate to have had people in my life who challenged me to think through the noise. My biggest challenge was believing in myself, to stand for what I believed in. Some colleagues expressed more belief in me than I did in myself. With curiousity at the core and courage active, I challenged group norms, the status quo.
As I journeyed through life’s milestones, a premise turned belief evolved – “More often than not, life is simpler than we make it out to be.”
COACHING FOR IMPACT WITH … CONVICTION
“More often than not, life is simpler than we make it out to be.”
As a seasoned marketing professional, research comes second nature. And so, I sought to qualify my convictions.
Early in 2010, I conducted an online survey. From a hundred people surveyed, sixty people responded. The gender was split 60/40 male/female. And, of the sixty respondents, 87% agreed/strongly agreed on the statement: “More often than not, life is simpler than we make it out to be”.
As I fine-tuned my wordsmith’ing of brand names, FosterEssence was born, and a soon to be thriving practice emerged.
COACHING FOR IMPACT
Fostering Curiosity, Courage & Conviction
Coaching for Impact isn’t merely about boosting performance or meeting targets—it’s an exploration into the heart of what makes work meaningful and teams vibrant. This approach challenges the perception of coaching as a fix-it tool for underperformance, positioning it instead as a catalyst for substantive, systemic change. We cut through the noise to engage in essential, sometimes disruptive, conversations that unravel complacency and usher in a realization of untapped possibilities.
The intent is for the development of conscious leadership and to breathe life into the kinds of conversations that matter—ones that open new pathways for constructive conflict, diversity in thought, and transformative actions. Through systemic team coaching, we not only tap into the collective intelligence but also raise the bar on what’s achievable. The goal is to reach beyond excellence in existing paradigms, to the curiosity, courage and conviction to redefine those paradigms altogether.
