Part 2/3- Can you be a brown coach?
I’m curious to know, when somebody asks you what you do (for a living), are you able to answer this without hesitation?
In my past life, it was easy enough to say “I’m a teacher”, it’s a common role around the world. Since making the career change into coaching though, I’ve discovered that things aren’t that simple.
Let’s take my parents for example. When I first told them about my career move, at first, they were happy that I was going to move away from the ridiculous hours of marking, early mornings, and late nights that my teaching profession had me in. They never quite understood what coaching was but if it meant I had more freedom over my time, then they were supportive of it. That is until they discovered that this would mean a salary cut. For them, our working-class mindset was a lens through which we saw the decision-making process; financial security trumps your dreams and desires. I wondered how many of my predecessors from our community had this reality.
Let’s take another example. Recently, I took a solo trip around India for a month. Even though I’m not Indian, seeing a fellow brown person who’s come from the UK, means that naturally, there is a curiosity about what I do. This curiosity was more prevalent amongst service level workers such as auto-rickshaw drivers. After a while, I realised that coaching means something different in India, depending on your social class background.
The urban, social media manager from Mumbai immediately understood what coaching is, while the local transport agent from Lucknow thought it was private tuition. He was more interested in how I got to the UK in the hopes that he could emulate my journey and find stable work to give himself a better life. His assumptions about me were wrong (I was born in the UK, and have no idea about migration laws here, other than the risk of getting deported to Rwanda?!), but I suppose he asked me this, because by virtue of shared complexion and language, somehow he saw himself in me. And this happened multiple times throughout that trip.
So what I’m hearing is (did I just paraphrase my own rambles in a coaching style?), that a brown coach is still alien, even to the brown community.
My coaching degree also felt strange. I grew up with representation not being a priority on any agenda, yet here I was on a Masters programme with people who actively challenged their own biases. They actually went to supervision to check themselves. I remember my lecturer even wished the whole cohort a happy Ramadhan in our first lecture with him (I’m sorry Dr, I was so tired after work and fasting that day, I accidentally napped for 15 minutes).
I loved this inclusivity! There was even (some, perhaps not enough) research on diverse populations and not the usual Eurocentric lens. The people sitting at the top tables in this industry were somewhat mixed, although I notice more European names. It’s difficult to assume. The thing that struck me though was that most of the coaching we spoke about, was coaching in western leadership, or western clients and audiences. We were talking corporates, CEOs, big cats.
It saddened me. I also wondered if some non-western audiences are even ready for coaching. When intergenerational trauma, poverty mindset, and mental health stigma still exists, how can we expect them to do the thriving work when so many are still on survival mode and perpetuating cycles of trauma to the younger generations?
I’m forced to now reflect if this is even a brown issue. Is it really to do with culture and ethnicity? You have people like Jay Shetty who have taken the internet by storm. (Okay I don’t know whether he’s a coach or motivational speaker, you can argue about that in the comments).
It begs the question, is it more to do with social class?
In the UK, coaching is received differently depending on who’s asking and their own personal experiences with it. It’s either considered a load of self-help farce, or a way of helping people and systems to thrive.
And the term coach…it feels too ambiguous to give me an identity. Do I say I’m a coaching psychologist? How about a coaching consultant? What about the massage work that I do? Should I just leave that out of my website? But it’s kind of interlinked…but can I be bothered to explain that every time somebody asks?
In one of my own coaching sessions (where I was a client), I discussed how I hid my identity behind labels. And teacher was one of them. I could hide behind the marking, the lesson planning, the behaviour management. I loved the accolades that came with being the cool and understanding teacher. It helped mask the multiple identities that I’d be living as a child of diaspora. It was a common way for the world to see me. Easy for my immigrant parents to explain to their friends. Easy for the ‘arranged marriage’ meetings I used to go to (those are some weird and wonderful stories for another day!)
That’s exactly it though. Easy for everybody else. I hadn’t realised how much of my life I was muting, just to make space for everybody else’s noise.
Teaching helped me to belong somewhere. I was connected (for a while), and I belonged to a system, a tutor group, a class, a department, a staff body, a noble cause etc. I was lucky enough to fall into this identity of teacher, a pre-made notion, recognised all around the world, a bit like IKEA furniture. All the pieces were there, I just had to build it.
It was recognised by the multiple cultures I lived. It (apparently) gave me social mobility. I could teach around the world and there was no doubt about my professional identity and I could belong in any educational establishment, any culture, and any class, with that title.
I think it’s harder to belong as a coach, even if I do feel connected to the work. It can be a lonely place; we’re spending so much time with ourselves, and with other people’s stuff. The belonging becomes ambiguous as I try to create this identity. It’s forcing me to look deeper into my personal identity. My history, culture, my class and ambitions, are all being called into consideration here.
To my fellow coaches, I’m curious to know, do you experience conflicts with your role as ‘coach’ – whether it’s with an aspect of your identity, or in the context of any personal stuff? What noises do you internally battle with and how do you mute those that aren’t your own? I invite you to share, within your comfort level of course.
This was so interesting to read because earlier today I was thinking about the things that define us, and the boxes we neatly pack ourselves into because it’s the easier way to live, but actually it’s almost always when we smudge the lines of our boxes that we have the most transformative experiences. And yet, we’re still so afraid to ever do it because we know that the path less travelled has too many variables and if you don’t know what others before you have done, how do you even know what the options available are? It’s almost like the freedom to create your own options and your own path feels like too much because what if you get it wrong?
But then you’re also like actually, how can you get something wrong if you’re the one creating it? Because surely if you’re creating it, you’re making all the choices that will make this path or this version of yourself or the decision the exact right one for you.
So I guess what I’m saying is, it’s terrifying doing something new and creating a space that hasn’t necessarily existed before, but it’s also a privilege because YOU get to pave the path you’re about to travel upon, and YOU get to decide what things can/will/or should impact it. And I have no doubt that, despite not having a safety blanket around you, you will create the best of spaces for both yourself and your community.