The joy with coaching is that you can start serving on day one: learn something and teach it. There is where the fulfillment comes. That’s where you start to get the energy to go and do more. I would love to be the go-to person in schools for emotional intelligence and intimacy.
Before I joined The Coaching Institute, I was working as a maternal and child health nurse with the local council. There was a voice inside telling me, “You should be doing something else, there’s something greater for you”.
I was really interested in watching people, like [life coach] Tony Robbins, [philanthropist] Warren Buffett and [entrepreneur] Jim Rohn. All these phenomenal giants discussing the fear of personal professional development.
One of the amazing free events that The Coaching Institute offer the public came up in my husband's feed on Facebook. He invited me as a guest, and there was no turning back from there. I did my first Foundations of Coaching Success training in September 2016.
It was something I'd never experienced before. I thought we would be sat in a room, and the trainer Joe Pane would speak. We'd listen and take notes. Instead we were up, we were interacting, we were meeting new people.
We were experiencing the power of touch - what that meant to another human being. It was a safe space. Joe setting up that environment for us, allowing us to have the room to be able to be expressive and respectful—that’s what took it to the next level.
Today, I work with students, teachers and parents to help support, create and develop leaders.
My business is called Fatima Raad: Mindset Strategist.
I do one-to-one coaching with men and women. Giving them space to breathe, giving them space to experience their emotions.
I’m developing programs where I teach emotional intelligence and intimacy in primary schools, and I’m wishing and praying [to implement that] in their curriculums.
To walk into a school, wake up the culture, enliven the students, get the teachers involved in the emotional health and well-being of the students and to train people in how to run [the programs] in different schools? I would die a happy woman!
It’s training teachers to look after their own needs and the needs of the kids. Knowing that if you care for the teacher, ultimately you care for the child. In the current school system, the child is the reason why we do everything and they need to be at the forefront.
For me the biggest thing is helping families work together. It’s not just about supporting the child. It’s about supporting every adult [that’s] in that child's life—parents, siblings, whoever. Every child has a family.
It’s about creating function in families. Moving away from the dysfunction of so many issues and [helping adults realise] that they all have things they need to let go of. They all have things that they need to heal.
Something that stands out for me is the first primary school I ever worked at. The teachers said “Oh, we don't know how this program is going to go.”
My ego said, “Don’t do it,” and my heart said “No, these children need the message. They need to hear this. They need to be inspired.”
Towards the end of a session, I had these two impressionable young women come and ask me about something that could potentially change the way that they view [emotional intimacy in friendships] going forward. That was really awesome. It was such a rewarding moment.
I attribute my success mostly to me having the grit to actually do it and embrace uncertainty. But it has a lot to do with my husband – the support that he's provided me in creating a legacy.
I’m creating a wonderful role model for kids and for people around me. A lot of children in schools are being raised by parents that have their own emotional intimacy issues. It's not their fault. It's not the parents' fault. It's no one's fault.
It’s about learning what drives your behaviour, and then how you go back, heal, let things go and be the person you want to be.
Fatima mentors women, men and children in order to help families work together through emotional intelligence and intimacy. She is also developing programs where she teaches this in primary schools to train school counsellors and teachers in the emotional health and well-being of students.
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