I’ve spent 18 years in the art world. I’ve worked in Pakistan, Canada and America in different art related jobs such as curator, art journalist, art instructor, commissioned artist and space designer. I consider myself lucky to have had the wonderful life experiences that I have had. Living in three different countries teaches you how to become open minded, non judgmental and resilient. I learnt to see people for who they are not all the labels we are so quick to slap onto each other, through my art practice I got to connect with people in a neutral space. The more public facing opportunities I received the more I became aware of how beautifully individual human beings are and how uniquely we are all built.
While I love my art practice I realized that the service piece was missing from my work life, I wanted to reach more people and faster. I wanted to be able to bring out the unique potential of each human being.
As I cleared my intention about this work I came across many different systems, coaching methodologies and processes. I tried it all, I researched the market thoroughly and found one that I could use to coach people.
Gallup, the world’s largest advice and analytics firm developed an assessment to uncover the hidden natural potential of each human being called Clifton’s strengths assessment. Taking the assessment was life changing and mind blowing in more ways than one for me. I could clearly see how so much of the stuff I thought was my weakness was actually an ill utilized strength. How we are told to be less of ourselves everyday while research shows that the top 2% are hyper focused on what they do best and collaborate and manage around their weaknesses hence achieve exponential success in any endeavor they undertake.
There was no looking back, I knew I had to bring this work to more people, schools, workplaces and individuals. I got certified as a strengths coach in 2019 and have been serving in the education sector and individual clients since with Empowered Life Solutions.
My big hairy audacious goal is that every high school student has his or her strengths assessment and coaching before they head out to college. Imagine how much more powerful, confident, happy and resilient people would be if they spent their lives doing what they do best, if everyone had a fighting chance to shine and show up as their best self and a vocabulary to describe what that exactly is.