Coach in the Spotlight: Aurelia Rogalli

How did you get into coaching?

Prior to becoming a coach, I worked in the events industry, which came with a seemingly glamorous lifestyle.

I stayed in great hotels, enjoyed world-class tasting events and attended high profile football matches.

Despite having what looked like an incredibly exciting job, I was exhausted from the early morning flights and 20 hour work days.

Working in events ticked the boxes for some of my values. I loved the adrenaline, diversity and energy as well as the chance to use my organisational skills, but something didn't sit right with me.

I reached a point where I decided to step back and evaluate what I wanted from my life.

Going freelance allowed me to reduce my working hours. As a result I got to spend one day a week researching and looking for the answers to some big questions I had about my future, personally and professionally. 

With newly created headspace and some external help, I started to understand my values and strengths, which led me to join the incredible coach training with CTI.

Coaching was an incredible, eye-opening experience which led me to training to be a coach myself with CTI.

Fast forward a couple of years and one baby later, I was looking for some additional training to build up my confidence and help me ease back into coaching after my maternity leave.

That’s when I came across Firework.

Up until then, I’d included career coaching as part of my offering but I didn’t have a clear structure or the confidence to take clients from a place of confusion to clarity about what career direction to take next.

Career transition was a daunting topic because I hadn’t been confident about how to get clients from a place of confusion to clarity about what career direction to take next.

Firework gave me the structure and credibility I was looking for.

 

With newly created headspace and some external help, I started to understand my values and strengths.

 

How did you apply what you learnt through Firework?

Firework helped me to shift my mindset straight away.

I immediately felt confident to call myself a career coach.

Firework gave me a 12 step career coaching programme which was really easy to explain to prospective clients, so I updated my offering on my website, created new documents and communicated this new programme to everyone around me.

I was lucky enough to work with a few new clients straight away and take them through the programme.

 

What results have you helped your clients achieve?

I’ve worked with clients who were drowning under a heavy workload, or they were being treated badly at work, or they deserved a promotion but didn’t have the confidence to stand up for themselves.

Through coaching, they built up the confidence and courage to have some seemingly difficult conversations with their managers, which led to a huge breakthrough for them.

There are a lot of occasions when I’ve given clients that nudge to network and connect with people. I’d often encourage them to reach out to someone they admire on Linkedin and ask them for a coffee.

This was usually very difficult for clients. They’d dread it so much that I’d sometimes I have to sit with them, help them craft the right message and hit the send button for them.

But afterwards they’d be so happy they’d done it because it eventually led to an exciting opportunity.

Other results are more tangible.

I had a client who became a mindfulness teacher alongside his career in finance.

I worked with someone else who became the leader of a branch of a women's equality rights party alongside her corporate job.

I recently received an email from a client who’s just finished an interior design course.

I love receiving emails like that – they put a smile on my face every time!

The majority of outcomes for clients include a better understanding of their talents and their potential, as well as how to deal with the uncertainty that comes with making big changes.

Firework highlights the importance of doing the groundwork to understand what a client really wants from their life.

Without this, they could certainly ‘get lucky’ and find a new, better job, but could potentially stumble again later on and be back at square one again.

 

Sometimes I have to sit with my clients, help them craft the right message and hit the send button.

 

How did you build your coaching practice?

I used the Firework framework like a recipe book.

Initially I stuck to the programme pretty rigidly. Of course I had to deviate at times, but it was my intention to know every exercise in depth and use it in the way it was intended, which worked really well.

I found that clients responded well to this structure, they liked knowing what was going to happen over the course of the coaching relationship and how they would be guided through it.

Like many coaches, when it came to building my business and getting clients I tried everything, including social media and online ads.

I built my website and started blogging. I joined business networking groups.

All of it played a part in building my business.

But some of these marketing efforts didn’t always sit right with me. Sometimes they felt more like a burden.

The thing that has consistently been effective has been nurturing relationships.

Fellow coaches are great connections.

I was fortunate to know other coaches (including Firework coaches) and organisations in the coaching industry so I could team up with them and work as an associate. This approach brought me the business I needed to get going.

Building a sustainable business and building a network takes time. You just have to keep going, putting the feelers out there and keep connecting to people.

People might assume that the coaching industry is competitive but that’s not been my experience. I’ve found other coaches in the same space to be supportive and have helped me build my business.

There are so many marketing experts claiming they know how to make your business successful, but some of these methods can leave you feeling drained and sap your energy.

One of the most important things I’ve learned is that your method of marketing has to work for you. You have to believe in it and enjoy doing it so it can be a positive part of your business model. This is something that we often only learn in hindsight.

Having this philosophy is even more important now that I’m a mum and my time is precious, so I have to use it wisely.

 

The thing that has consistently been effective has been nurturing relationships.

 

What other resources have helped you build your business or enhance your coaching skills?

The ICF accreditation and other courses have helped me to keep developing my coaching skills and grow my network.

I’ve always had coach supervision calls, mentoring calls and taken part in forums with other coaches.

As a CTI coach, I'm also able to participate as an assistant coach on the training which I’ve done a few times.

These experiences have all helped to reinforce my learning and be mindful of what I’m doing as a coach.

Being a coach and working for yourself means you need to grow a practice, it’s not simply about coaching.

I enjoy the exchange with other entrepreneurs, not necessarily only those in the coaching industry, but anyone who is running their own small business.

It’s useful to chat about different marketing tactics and where to learn new skills as well as the differences between selling a product over a service.

In addition, there are so many resources available to me from CTI, fellow coaches and other coaching organisations.

 

Being a coach and working for yourself means you need to grow a practice, it’s not simply about coaching.

 

What’s the most rewarding thing about coaching?

I get to learn so much about a person’s life through the conversations I have with my clients.

That was one essential thing missing from my previous career – deep connections with other people.

It’s a privilege that my clients trust me enough to share the issues they’re experiencing and I learn so much from them.

Coaching is about using your skills to uncover a client’s unknown potential. It’s really exciting when I’m working with someone who discovers their passion and then actually goes out and does some form of it for a living.

I love helping others living a better version of themselves; be more present; learn how to listen; and utilise their resources.

Sometimes I get feedback immediately that the coaching is having an impact. For example, a client might say, “I wouldn’t have been able to have that talk with my manager if it weren’t for our sessions”.

That kind of feedback is a real driver for me.

 

It’s a privilege that my clients trust me enough to share the issues they’re experiencing.

 

What do you find most challenging about career coaching?

One of the main challenges for me is my own saboteur.

I sometimes doubt my abilities as a coach because I can’t always see the impact of the work I do immediately.

I haven’t had many clients who’ve made a career change quickly and instantly.

However, what I have enjoyed is getting those emails sometimes more than a year later telling me about something exciting, “I’ve just resigned from my job and accepted a new role…” or “I’ve just enrolled on this course…” or “I’ve launched my business!”

This teaches me to be patient when it comes to seeing the results of the coaching process, but it’s an ongoing challenge to believe in my capabilities as a coach.

 

It’s an ongoing challenge to believe in my capabilities as a coach.

 

What do you wish you’d known when you started out or that you’d wish you’d done differently?

I don’t know if I’d have done anything differently, but building my business took me a lot longer than I expected.

I spent a lot of time on marketing and finding clients initially (things I didn’t necessarily enjoy) and I wasn’t coaching as much as I’d have liked to.

My maternity leave came at just the right time because it gave me the opportunity to step back and consider where I wanted to focus my time and energy.

Investing in my own coach helped me to answer some of those questions much more quickly than if I’d been left to struggle alone.

 

My maternity leave came at just the right time because it gave me the opportunity to step back.

 

How do you see your work evolving in the future?

There are a few options I'm considering at the moment.

I’m thinking about going back to life coaching because I love the flexibility and the thrill of not knowing what topics the client will bring to the sessions.

That said, there's still so much to learn for me in career coaching and it would be the easier route back into work.

Another option I’m considering is focusing on women like me – mums who are contemplating the return to work after having a baby.

Either way, I believe coaching is needed more now than ever before and I really look forward to seeing where my work takes me.

 

Aurelia is a licensed Firework career coach and passionate life coach, working with ambitious individuals in their 30s and 40s. Following an exciting but exhausting decade in the Events industry, Aurelia trained as a Co-Active coach with CTI and has spent the last three years building her business as well as raising a family. Find out more about Aurelia.