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

Pamela, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

I took the decision to retrain as a business and professional development coach at a later stage of my working life. I was terrified at the prospect of all the administration and finance side of running my own business. I was much happier developing the practice deepening my skills and learning how to adapt them for each client. I need not have struggled so hard I really just needed to ask for help. Many people who are self employed or build their own businesses are not really business trained and so there are lots of resources to support this. I have now integrated my practice and business skills into a new role working in community inspired business and it’s the best thing over ever done for a living. I feel able to take full ownership in my role as custodian of a delightful community centre from within which my practice flourishes.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

At 53 years of age I have now spent equal amounts of my life between my home countries of Uganda and the UK. I was born at a time of turmoil in Uganda which left me growing up in the UK and burning with a desire to right human wrongs. Spending the early years of my career as a Refugee and human rights lawyer in Uganda I felt the fire was burning me up rather than satisfying the longing to be of service in any impactful and meaningful way. In the meantime I had the joy and privilege of raising three children in Uganda hoping to allow them the experience of knowing firsthand what it meant to be half Ugandan and half British. This path led me to look again at my career path and I chose to retrain as a coach. To me it simply made sense and came naturally. Supporting people towards their best selves and journeying the road together pot holes and all gives me great satisfaction. I am happiest uncovering hopes aspirations and new perspectives. I love helping others to gain clarity and find the best way forward for them with them. Currently I work as Centre manager for a unique community focused business called HEART www.Heartcentre.org.Uk in Headingley West Yorkshire UK. It’s a delight full of life and energy providing all manner of humanity with opportunities to learn share meet play and feast on good healthy locally sourced food. Within this hive of community I provide one to one and team coaching sessions. It’s nourishing and challenging all at the same time.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I am a people person so working with a team is something I enjoy. However it’s also the most tricky part of any business as it’s so integral and humans are so unpredictable! Showing up with authenticity goes along way. A team may need to change and adapt so being open minded and consultative is a powerful way to keep engagement and allay concerns about changes. Never underestimate the small kindness and human attention to one another sometimes it’s the only thing we can guarantee one another.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I do have a history of making quite dramatic decisions in my life largely inspired by my heart. I moved myself my three month old son and husband of 8months from London to Kampala at a moments notice. We did settle there for 25 years but then more recently I moved back to the UK with my daughter and once again opted to move to Leeds in Yorkshire knowing no one and unemployed in order to reunite the family and all live together again under one roof. These leaps of faith were necessary to hear what my heart was asking for but it sure made me appreciate my resilience and adaptability to start again and build networks from scratch trusting it would all work out.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.oasis human relations.org.uk, www.Heartcentre.org..uk
• Instagram: Ilovemylifecoaching
• Linkedin: Pamela Reynell

Image Credits

Ali Smith Photography