This newsletter message is in memory and in dedication to Avril Baxter – an inspirational coach and a beautiful soul who passed away from Leukemia a few weeks back. Her strong message for all us is to live our life fully, seize the opportunities, appreciate what we have and treat ourselves and others kindly and with love.
Avril planted a seed many years ago that ultimately led to the creation of Empower World: a coaching, facilitation and coach training and mentoring organization established in Doha, Qatar, The Middle East in 2012.
Avril was the consummate professional business coach as well as consultant, facilitator and mentor. And she displayed the true characteristics of a coach long before she even studied the skills of coaching. And in her honor, we would like to share some of those attributes with our readers. These are characteristics we believe makes a great and successful coach – way beyond expectations.
When Jeanine first met Avril back in the 90’s, she was in charge of public relations for a large Australian owned funds management company. It was a huge, responsible role, but Avril was very capable of handling it. In fact, she embraced it. This was because she was incredibly resourceful, creative, outwardly confident and 100 percent accountable for the job she did at this early age of her life. And this was despite not being consciously aware of coaching principles at the time.
Avril studied, researched and sought feedback on her work to make sure she was well prepared to do the best job she could do. And people like Jeanine really appreciated every effort she put in to ensure the good reputation and name of the organisation went far and wide.
Back then, Jeanine used to write about the impact of investment markets on the funds that were managed by the organization they worked for, as well as what the fund managers were doing to potentially add value to the managed funds. Her target market was financial planners and retail investors – the mums and dads of the world.
Jeanine was required to submit her work to Avril for editing purposes every week. And consequently, to her great fulfillment, she began to learn how to write professionally from reviewing Avril’s edits (always made in red) as well as from the feedback she would give Jeanine verbally on a regular basis. This professional connection between them both led to their strong friendship and also many professional writing roles – and other roles – in Jeanine’s life.
Avril recognized a skill that Jeanine was never consciously aware of: that she could turn investment speak/technical wording into something that could be understood by mums and dads. She advised Jeanine it was a rare talent and other organizations would pay handsomely for that skill.
Avril didn’t have to feed this back to Jeanine, but Avril chose to really acknowledge this strength and how this supported her and the organization – which no other person had ever done as consciously and specifically as Avril had. As coaches, we recognise specific feedback is important to give and receive as both a coach and coachee to ensure enhancements can be made.