Coach FEATURE: Shikina Tellis

We continue to meet our fellow coaches, get inspired and build coach community with our "Meet the Coach" features! This month we meet the lovely Shikina Tellis, a passionate life and career coach for professional women.

About Shikina

Lives In: Potomac, USA.

Company: TWS Coaching and Consulting Group, LLC.

Type of Coach: Life and Career Coach.

Describe your coaching business in one sentence:I am a Certified Life Coach dedicated to empowering my clients to thrive personally and professionally. My focus is helping professional women transition from juggling everything to confidently and harmoniously navigating their finances, profession, and personal relationships.

Meet Shikina

QUESTION 1. What one book should every coach read - and why?

If I only had one, it would be Coaching the Person, Not the Problem by Marcia Reynolds. This was a phenomenal read as it helped me understand, apply the principles, and get a deep sense of what it looks like to coach the person, not the problem.

I am a Life Coach because I believe that each client is like an iceberg in that they present with the 10 percent or surface symptoms. And as you partner with them, create a safe space and remain curious, the 90 percent or deeper issue that's impacting them in the present surfaces. By partnering with them and accessing that hidden 90 percent, results in transformation on the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and energetic levels.

QUESTION 2. Which website do you visit the most?

It's a tie between The Coaching Tools Company for exercises and activities I use in individual coaching sessions—and empowerment life skills workshops and Coaching.com for Ann Betz's Neuroscience of Coaching program. In my quest to better understand the "magic" of coaching, Ann Betz's has been a thought-provoking program as I better understand why coaching is so powerful, how it impacts the brain, and how to apply neuroscience for better coaching outcomes.

QUESTION 3. Whom do you admire most and why?

So many people have helped me to be the person I am today and continue to be there for me personally and professionally.

But the person I admire most is my mom! She sacrificed a lot, holds faith close, and loves fiercely. Through stern yet strict love, she helped me develop a heart focused on faith, a supportive tribe, and service to a cause greater than myself.

QUESTION 4. What's your vision for your life? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

That's an excellent question. I am beginning a year filled with several major life transitions. In five years, I see myself:

1. Settled and enjoying stability residing in a semi-permanent geographic area.
2. Serving in my local faith community and the community at large.
3. Exploring what it looks like to be an empty nester.
4. Supporting coaching clients while routinely traveling and enjoying nature sites across the U.S.

QUESTION 5. What is your "big project" at the moment? OR What are your Top 3 Goals at the moment?

My top 3 goals at the moment are:

1. Earn my ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) Credential no later than March 31, 2024.
2. Learn more about and apply neuroscience principles in my coaching practice to support my clients in making transformative, lasting change.
3. Continue to hone coaching skills while building relationships within the ICF community, with fellow coaches, and with providers that support coaches while preparing to provide coaching services from a new geographic location.

QUESTION 6. What has been your favourite coaching moment so far?

My favorite coaching moment was when I applied a recently learned neuroscience coaching tool to assist a client experiencing a stressful real-time situation.

She was experiencing a stress-inducing situation that was unfolding as we started our call. We utilized a stress-reduction tool that pinpointed the affected value, employed a metaphor to ease her stress perception, and facilitated a more creative problem-solving approach for her challenge.

When our call concluded, she had gained clarity, realized the stressful situation wasn't a regular event—and adopted a more forgiving approach that seemed healthier for everyone involved.

QUESTION 7. What are your Top 3 favourite coaching tools and/or resources?

1. The Coaching Tools Company has the following resources I routinely use:
   • Client Intake Session Checklist
   • In Person Workshop/Event Checklist
   • The Wheel of Life
   • My Next 3 Month Goals
2. Neuroscience of Coaching Tools:
   • Reducing Stress Through Values Externalization Coaching Tool: used when a client is stuck and unsure how to move forward. It has them use objects in their environment to playfully explore their issue.

QUESTION 8. What do you love most about being a coach?

I love being my client's thinking partner and providing them with a judgment-free space to have the conversation out loud they have been having in their heads. Then, as the conversation unfolds, witnessing the verbal and non-verbal shifts and "a ha," moments that catalyze them to move from being stuck to unstuck, and feeling empowered to make at least one step toward their "beneath the waterline" desired outcome.

QUESTION 9. Tell us a secret about you...

I have always thought of myself as an extrovert! My MBTI indicates I am a borderline extrovert. I love being with people, learning about people, serving people, and hearing people's stories. But it takes a lot of my energy.

I learned that I am more of an introvert! For most of my life, I have operated as an extrovert and only took time to put my oxygen mask on when I was very sick or experienced multiple burnout symptoms.

In this phase of my life, I have learned to be okay with setting healthy boundaries by managing my energy so I can give others my very best from my energy reserves!

QUESTION 10. If you could change one thing in our world, what would it be? And how would you go about it?

Many things come to mind, and I am starting with the one that led me to become a coach. After experiencing the power of coaching, it is a tool many people can benefit from; however, it might not be affordable.

It's my goal to make coaching accessible to anyone willing to do the work to reap the benefits of this valuable tool.

LEARN MORE about Shikina here: Visit Shikina's Website here >> Follow Shikina on Facebook >> Follow Shikina on LinkedIn >> Follow Shikina on Instagram >>