Community Creates Collaboration

I’ve participated in this 4-hour online event called Coach Day held by a French coaching company, Turningpoint, in Asia, . 37 coaches from France, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan joined via zoom.

Turningpoint Asia has build an amazing community of coaches across Asia, and everyone participated on this 4-hour event voluntarily. Some of them even volunteered to facilitate activities. It’s amazing all of these coaches, who can make a few or several hundred USD per hour are devoting their 4-hours to this session.

I’ve been working with Turningpoint since last summer, and I know why these coaches are contributing so much. The leadership members are very passionate and compassionate, empathetic and authentic. Of course they care about profit because it’s a company, but they also care so much about people, both clients and coaches.

I felt it very much when I attended their first Coach Days event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last September. The leadership team was very welcoming, accepting, encouraging. The whole group was so warm and inclusive that although it was the first time for me to meet everyone except for one coach, I felt like I’ve been the member of the community for a long time.

One of the memorable moments was when one leader took her time at night to talk with me one-on-one to mentor me and coach me to let me know that I have such a special presence that I should just be myself and proud of myself.

The over all message I received from the members were the same. Here, I learned that my presence is very special, and my storytelling talent is also very special, and just by being myself, I can contribute to the community so much.

I kept in touch with all the members, and I got to know some people at a very personal level. With one of them, Marie-Liesse Calmejane, I shared my story about Adversity to Advocacy. At that time, I didn’t know how I wanted to move forward with the idea, but telling her about it, and receiving positive feedback helped me confirm that I’m on the right track.

Marie-Liesse also told me then that she has a similar life challenge, and she would like to do something like what I did. I said she can do it. Since then, we kept in touch and talked about our situations and our plans on and off. This inspired both of us and we started to find out what we wanted to do more clearly.

I came up with the idea of doing an online Resiliency Workshop. The follow coach joined mine, and she also started her own online Resilience Workshop. I’m grateful she invited me to hers. We have done not only workshops but also webinars on resilience, and these webinars were successful.

It’s amazing how far Marie-Liesse and I have come. We did not know what we wanted to do back in September when we first met during the first Coach Days, but now in April 2020, by our second Coach Days, we’ve brainstormed, collaborated, and created our own workshops!

I believe this friendship and collaboration have been possible because of the wonderful, open and inclusive community Turningpoint has created. I truly feel their value of being there for the people before thinking about the profit and creating the sense of community among people.

I’d like to apply this philosophy when I work with others too because it aligns with my mission: providing time, space and opportunity for people to connect, learn, and empower each other to make a positive synergy. I’m truly grateful I can work for this great company.