My story with S4E was started accidentally. Looking back at that period of time when I was struggling with my work, I found myself not feeling right with the way of thinking at work. For one thing, I found that there was somehow a lack of mentality to grasp the overall outlook of my work as a whole, and to deal with issues in a closed-loop way. For another, staff in my team was not able to complete tasks on time, which made me feel frustrated and forced me to realize my inadequate ability to lead my team to reach our goals.
Thirdly, as we worked more and more closely with international teams, English became the necessary working language for communication, however, my poor English skills stopped me from communicating with colleagues in different countries. This made me anxious and not able to push forward my work effectively. Confronted with all this, I saw myself just like a frog stuck in warm water. I could feel that something must have gone wrong, but I could not get motivated to make a change.
Right at that moment of time, I met the first coach in my life, Wayne Brown, at work. When I saw him, I could feel his inner peace and his heartfelt willingness to help. This made me feel motivated and want to open up my heart to talk about how I really felt. He helped me dig into the problems I met at work and found the root cause. He helped reset my goals, start to take action, and constantly take reviews.
As the coaching process went on, Wayne helped me see the real logic behind my behaviors at work, and to find the need hidden deep in my heart. I was shocked, sad, and even falling apart with my face full of tears, when I heard the voice of my own heart. It was a call that was never really heard or cared by anyone before, not even myself. Wayne didn’t say much to calm me down, but he just stayed there with me, and left some space for me to recover.
Only when I was able to put myself together again, did he start to guide me to think further, and worked with me all the way to find solutions to heal the wound in my heart? During the whole process, Wayne did not only play the role of a coach, but also a consultant and a mentor, who would switch his roles as the situations needed! This was truly helpful to me! He was really amazing, and I’d really appreciate it.
I just can not say enough to express my gratefulness. In the end, I was brave enough to leave the place I worked at, and to try and go for a new direction that I had always been longing for! And as a person, I have also finally recognized what I really wanted in my life and how to get it.
One is to go through several twists and turns and hardships before he or she could really grow in life. Once standing at a crossroad, or being lost or stuck deep in the mud, if someone could guide us with a heart of great love, or help us see the road under our feet from a broader perspective, that’d be a great fortune in our life! I hope you all to be such lucky people to meet your mentor, your coach, and your precious friends when you are lost!
Polly Liu, Learning and Development Manager, China