Samar Naim on Why She Tells Her Clients to Be SELFISH

Interview with ICA Coach, Samar Naim
(Life & Executive Coach, DUBAI, UAE)

Samar Naim works in organization and people development for a government organization in Dubai. She is also a certified coach with International Coach Academy. In this interview she talks to ICA Training Director, Merci Miglino about her SELFISH coaching model.

Summary

0:36 – Coaching came to Samar as a calling
0:46 – Coaching develops her both professionally and personally
1:13 – Uses coaching in her position as People and Organisational Specialist in the UAE
2:47 – SELFISH coaching Model
3:08 – SELF is about the awareness process
4:08 – ISH includes using selfies to show yourself to the world!
4:31 – What is your SELFISH today?
4:51 – Coaching is a journey of partnership to maximize potential
5:28 – Using the discovery session
5:48 – Life and executive coaching – working with the whole person.

Full Transcript

Merci: Hi! I’m delighted to welcome Samar all the way from the UAE. Welcome, Samar.

Samar: Thank you. Thank you.

Merci: So you are one of our ICA coaches, tell me what have you been doing since you graduated?

Samar: I’ve been coaching. [laughter]

Merci: [laughter] That’s great. What year did you graduate?

Samar Naim: I graduated last year 2014, in June, I believe.

Merci: Okay, great. So how did you get into coaching? Like, what brought you into the field?

Samar: Yes, I really believe that coaching came to me as a calling. I was going through this transitional phase of really wanting to develop myself. But this time, I didn’t want anything that would help me develop as a professional only but as a person too and so, there was coaching. It didn’t take me long to decide on going ahead with it. I think it took me around a week from the first time I coached someone at ICA.

Merci: Oh, wow. That’s amazing. You’re really a quick decider, I’d say. Has it been something that’s enriched youboth personally and professionally?

Samar: Very much so, Very much so.

Merci: Great. What were you doing prior to coaching? Did you have a profession or a field that you were in?

Samar Naim: I’m still in the profession that I was in before coaching. I work as a people and organization development specialist at a government department. It specializes in protocol and that’s what I’m doing until now.

Merci: Does coaching help you there?

Samar: Very much so, in the sense that I’ve been included as part of the performance appraisal process – the before, between and after. That’s why I started putting coaching into play when it comes to my job, my kind of job. But I also do it after working hours as personal, individual coaching.

Merci: Yeah. Because I could hear your desire for something that would be expanding the entirety of who you are. You know, seeing it in your work. It’s great – people skills and then helping people doing it one on one. Terrific. Wonderful. Alright so, we do some interesting things here at the ICA when we’re students don’t we? We do our coaching model; we create our own coaching model and maybe a power tool and a research paper. Pick one or two of those and tell me how you came to do them and what they were about.

Samar: Well basically all of them are very similar because they hold one theme that I am so, for. I’m about being whole, being multi-dimensional,   embracing the whole of you, every layer, every side, every you. So If you look at my coaching model it’s based on the acronym – SELFISH. Now when I first thought of ‘selfish’ I was really worried about how people might take it. But then again I thought what coaching is about. Coaching is about embracing diversity, reframing your perspective and releasing judgments. So having that in mind I went ahead with my selfish model and it’s made up of the seven letters in ‘S-E-L-F-I-S-H. The first four are actually the process and then the last three are more of the philosophy of life.

‘S’ is for like sharing the story of the client.
‘E’ is about exploring who you are and engaging with what you have.
‘L’ is about Learning. About what you can create for yourself and living that story.
‘F’ is about flow into action of going through.
‘ISH’ part that you need to have in the philosophy…

Merci: ‘ISH’ … [laughing]

Samar: Yeah …[laughing]

Merci: I like the ‘ISH’ you had …

Samar: It’s about really instilling what you learned from the ‘SELF’ process into you. And internalizing it and then the ‘S’ is showing yourself the ‘selfie’, right? Showing the ‘selfie’ to yourself and showing it to the world. Really enjoying and celebrating the results. And then ‘H’ is all about hailing that happiness and keeping and maintaining that happiness for yourself. So that’s my coaching model.

Merci: Wow. I love it! How bold to call it selfish. How bold, I love it! Yeah, because it’s a different perspective.
Samar: Yes, and I usually ask my clients, at some of them that I agree with. What is your selfish today? What have you done something for you?

Merci: Yeah, It’s so interesting because, you know, we put such  a negative perspective on selfish and when you look at it as self-care, as self-enlightenment, self-awareness. Wow! That’s all about the “ISH”. I like that. Alright.

Samar: [laughter]

Merci: You know I’m dying to hear what you would say, what is the one thing you would like to tell people today about coaching.

Samar: Coaching is an inter-disciplinary practice that’s very rewarding. It’s a journey of just being, a journey of flowing. It’s a partnership of self-discovery and maximizing your potential. I, very much invite everyone to try at least the discovery session to get to see what their goal is. Where they want to head.

Samar: Yes. That’s what I see about coaching.

Merci: That’s well said. So who you coaching these days? Before we complete our call, tell me a little bit about who your clients are.

Samar: I’m coaching other coaches right now. I have two other coaches that I am coaching. And I usually coach people on life and executive issues. So I had some clients that belong to the corporate world and had some stress or work-life balance issues. I had also some clients that just want general life issues. And I usually get my clients through referrals –  that’s a powerful tool, let me say.

Merci: Yeah, yeah. Good for you.

Samar: Yes, yes.

Merci: It really works.

Samar: For my power tool, I chose not an either/or perspective at all. I just chose an and/or perspective.

Merci: Oh, okay.

Samar: I try to use consistency and/or randomness and it’s not about finding the balance or about choosing any of them. It’s about finding the right blend that serves you in a certain situation. And it very much is in line with the yin yang philosophy, like seemingly contrary factors are in fact natural dualities. They interact, one dominates more than the other but at the end of the day, they’re all part of you.

Merci: Right, right. You know, interacting dualities. I love it. What a great  way to look at it. I remember reading that one too. Thank you so much.