We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lama Younes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lama below.

Lama, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When you were first starting out, did you join a firm or start your own?

I started my own coaching practice after 14 years in corporate and 9 months of personal reflection time. During my last year of corporate life, I was already starting to feel out of place and not enjoying my work at all, even though I love the core of my job. I never thought I would leave corporate, let alone start my own business, so this was an extremely difficult decision, however, it coincided with my own personal self-awareness journey and life decisions also. Looking back, I wouldn’t have done it any differently. Beyond the pain of the inauguration of the business, I now prefer putting all my effort into something that comes back to me, while giving me freedom of my time and decisions, versus having all my effort go somewhere else.

Backstory:
I worked for a major multinational company for 13 years, starting right after graduation. It was difficult to decide to leave that company, which I loved a lot and owed a huge amount of my growth and experiences to. However, it was time for me to “get to know the world”. I moved to another large multinational firm, however didn’t find I naturally fit with the culture, and so the one year I spent there was difficult and discouraging for me. When a restructuring came along, I was part of the cuts. I was honestly relieved, and I am thankful for that every day as it sort of made the decision for me in a way. Following that, I decided I would take a break and not apply for any other jobs until I spent some time with myself. At that point, I had been working for 14 years non-stop, and I cherished the opportunity to get to know who I am outside of a company culture and outside of my profession, which was my identity, basically. I took time to travel, read books, enjoy my days with no pressure, until one day, I came across a course I thought would be interesting: a coaching certification course. It spoke to me in the sense that I realized my favourite part of my HR job was the coaching/consulting part that I spent with leaders, managers, and employees helping them work through their challenges. That was it! The coaching course not only taught me the best coaching practices, it also helped me expand my own self-awareness and confidence. This helped me decide to at least try starting my own business. “And if it doesn’t work out, I can always go back to applying for jobs”, I thought. I didn’t look back since then!

Lama, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In my current career and leadership coaching practice, I serve individuals and organizations.

With individuals, I provide two main types of coaching: First is what I call “Discovery Coaching”, which helps professionals who are looking to improve their leadership skills, or possibly to explore how to breakthrough a glass ceiling they may have hit in their growth, or even to discover what career options may be possible for them if they’re not satisfied with their current career path altogether. The second is “Job Search Coaching”, which helps professionals who know what they’re looking for but may be struggling to get those kinds of roles cover an A to Z of optimized job search, thereby increasing their chances of getting their dream job.

With organizations, I provide the DiSC assessment training, which provides teams an opportunity to enhance their communications and internal understanding, thereby optimizing results and outcomes. I also provide HR consulting on career related tools and materials creation, including potential leadership development, career pathing, resume and interview skills, etc.

What sets me apart from others doing similar work is the care and connection I foster with my clients. I am very passionate about career and HR work, and I accept nothing less than the best possible results for my clients. Many of them experience this through the touch points and follow ups outside of our “regular sessions” or scope of work. Therefore, when I think of what I’m most proud of, it’s not necessarily that I started my own business (during a pandemic no less!) or that I kept it going, it’s each success that I hear back from my clients as a result of coaching. Getting that dream job that they wanted or getting the promotion or recognition they were seeking for so long, or seeing a team share “inside jokes” following a team training that we do together which resonated with them.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Being the perfectionist type most of my life, I had to unlearn the narrative of not starting something until every single detail is ready and perfect and that there’s no room for failure. I now actually INCLUDE “failure” as part of my plans!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Without a doubt, it has been LinkedIn. Being of course that this platform is extremely relevant for career coaching made this easier for me. However I also find that the platform is pretty generous with their exposure and visibility algorithms, making it a place where I was able to grow a pretty big following by simply being consistent with my content and posts.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.youness.ca
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/careercoachingbylama/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lama-younes/

Image Credits
n/a – all photos submitted are personal