Alumni letter : I AM ONE OF YOU
“This is an introduction for those who are not familiar with the Essays. During Being Coach(ed) program the participants are invited to write the outcome of their self-reflection process after each module, as part of their learning process. One of our Alumni wrote an extra Essay, which is meant as an overview of his learning process.”
Essay No. 9 or The Essay I did not have to write.
From: me (Dan Magirescu).
To: Ana, Catalina, Olga, Adela, Cristi, Irina and the colleagues from Being Coach(ed) S14.
I did not the write all the other 8 I had to, but „The Last Essay” sounded too terminal, so I have decided to stick to „Essay No. 9”. Anyway, it was important to call it an essay, so that it is clear, from the very beginning, that this page is written “without pretending to cover the matter entirely” and so – an attempt.
It is my attempt to thank you for a wonderful school.
A school built like a tale – like a bildungsroman. A school where quantity gave way to quality, where the method gave way to discovery, where the curriculum gave way to authenticity. A school not only about coaching, but also created in the SPIRIT OF COACHING. A school like a COACHING SESSION, centered on the student’s objective, with more questions than answers, with the depth of a therapeutic process.
Thank you for everything you taught us, but more so for everything you have not taught us: so many things to share from your coaching experience and yet so much space left for the COACH in every one of us to emerge. Thank you all for the experience you gave us as a team and thank each one of you for the things you left with me:
- Ana, thank you for walking with me up to the school’s steps, in all the ways that you did. Thank you for your candor in sharing feedback and stories from the first steps on your coaching path.
- Catalina, thank you for welcoming me in the school, though late and stuttering. Thank you for your patience and trust along all our practice sessions. It is in your “classes” that I became a better coaching client, it is in your “classes” that I learnt to be a COACH.
- Alexandra, Alina C, Alina R, Anca, Angel, Bogdan, Francesca, Gabriela, Josef, Lili, Madalina, Mircea, Simona – I could not have better, more curious and braver colleagues than you. My coach quiver is full of the things I have learnt from your and my heart is full of the stories we lived together.
- Olga, thank you for your gift of acceptance, which I keep in a motto: “what has been – had to be and what is – needs to happen”. Thank you for the serenity, the inner peace and for the joy. You left a seedling in me after every course: a seedling of peace and acceptance and the inspiration to care for it every day. One day, not too far into the future, this seedling will grow into a tree of serenity, a “CALMTREE” 😊 – and I will stay in its shadow thinking of you.
- Adela, thank you for the courage, vulnerability and the lightness you had showing us what a coach is. It was besides you that I started believing I can be a COACH and from this very space I got the courage to become one.
- Cristi, thank you for the humor, for the self-irony and for helping me re-falling in love with the Romanian language. I was in dire need of all of them. Thank you for the passion you talked about business coaching. Should I ever return to corporations, it will be as a COACH and you will be the only one to blame! 😊
- Irina, thank you for the personal branding course. I attended it from beginning to end with the conviction that the power of personal branding springs is drawn from my authentic self and that building it will be essential in fulfilling my COACHING profession and mission.
- This would not be an exercise of authentic gratitude without expressing it in the most profound way: towards myself. So, Dan, thank you for the intention, thank you for the courage, thank you for allowing yourself to be inspired. Thank you for all the hours you learnt and practiced and more so for the hours in which you transformed yourself, in which you became. Thank you for all your sides and all your voices, old and new and thank you for making me whole again by accepting all of them. I am so proud of everything you are now.
This is the first school I finished with a smile both on my lips and in my heart. I have left nothing behind, took everything with me, within me – colleagues, mentors and a COACH’s heart to escort me in the journeys to come. And this very moment, of which I cannot be prouder of, that starting today I AM ONE OF YOU.
