About – Glenda Coaching

WHO IS GLENDA

• THE FORCE BEHIND THE TRANSFORMATION •

I'm Glenda

I’m a Mindset coach, writer, inspirational speaker, mentor and mental health advocate.

I'm Glenda. I’m a Mindset coach, writer, inspirational speaker, mentor and mental health advocate. I’m a mother, an entrepreneur, writer and professional in the development sector working on sectoral interventions on gender based violence and family foundations. I'm on a continuous learning journey of self-discovery, and to be the best coach supporting my clients. I also specialise in helping women discover and embrace transformation in their unique passion and purpose, including youth groups that I work and support. Knowing how I struggled in these areas, the pain I went through birthed a passion that has helped many women unveil their power and beauty within, and young people have made decisions that have uplifted them to be the best version of themselves.

"I believe that a purposeful life is about learning always, and at each discovery lies an answer within ourselves, and with direction, and so forward on, we take actions intentionally to becoming remarkable beings."

I’m a seasoned professional and strategist with two decades working in the gender and development sector in public health: HIV/AIDS, Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights, Gender based violence interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a social emotional facilitator and mentor both separately and simultaneously, I worked in schools, rural communities and townships.

As a gender specialist and coach, I work with business leaders and professionals needing support to deal life and work balance, especially women transitioning into leadership and decision making, supporting them to dispel beliefs that limit their potentials and youth in the education to promote goal setting.

How do I combine the two? I create activities purposefully for learning and transformational development through sharing and using materials based on real life coaching techniques with the simple aim of instilling self-confidence and self-love in youth and women.

In 2020, I was recognised for collaborative work in the Africa Region by the Desmond Tutu Reconciliation Fellowship, on gender and reconciliation through the co-created concept of Uncomfortable Conversations, a facilitated forum creating courageously brave spaces for unheard and hidden conversations at many sections of society.

I love reading and meditating and creating organic food and body products for my passion project called Afrikoziz. I love documenting stories of change create knowledges of our realities in the manner that speaks to life as a journey, of continued learning.

I’m one of the thirty authors of Township Girls - the Crossover Generation an anthology of collected biographical stories written by Southern African women relating their experiences of growing up in Rhodesia, during the precarious ‘transition’ years (70-80s) just prior to, and post-Independence Zimbabwe. Published by the award-winning, Weaver Press in 2018. I’m the editor of the published book by Thandi Makoni-Get up & Get out- How to get out of toxic relationships.

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like if you had a cheer leader, that person that just shows up and brings the best out of you? Well, I was that girl with dreams and ideas that were so big at the time, still I wanted to achieve my dreams and become somebody. My desire to make it in life and have my parents be proud of me brought a deeper hunger in me to do more. As I took a chance at life, I was also met with a system loaded with beliefs of who I would be and who I should become. Confused, I just tagged along my own life because, the voice inside of me conflicted with expectations of me by both family, teachers and friends too. I learnt, and was influenced largely by my close circle and I adapted for survival. I lived with the low expectations of what a young black girl was supposed to be. No high achievers allowed here!

These perceptions and limiting beliefs became part of my socialisation and social conditioning. And deep inside it irked me. So I fought from the inside, a young heroine believing for more and my dreams. I did have small wins. I’d like to think that I confounded their expectations when, I became one the first to travel abroad to live initially in Canada, and then later to further my studies in recognised Universities. The warring inside of me continued and with no-one to guide or show some direction, I shadow boxed myself to some success of what I loved and I kept doing it. Hoping for an answer somewhere and wanting more, I knew there had to be another way. I wanted more, but without a cheering party my young career journey a hit and miss affair. I faced challenges of job hoping, and could just not figure this thing called life out.

At some point, I had a mentor, a therapist and a counsellor, well they gave what they could. And in all of that, I wanted a drive that would raise me into this being I had imagined when I was eight years old. I had hoped to go to medical school, and then being a lawyer, and then just took anything else in between. And my advocate heart took me over.

I encountered coaching and it changed my life. I was a client to several coaches before I realised that I love coaching. I had been doing it in fact throughout my work in communities, in the boardrooms, in the home to some extent. With coaching I saw a road map of my life emerge through the evocative and provocative thinking space with focused action towards improved performance and outcomes- this is what is possible and what makes me alive aligns me as a great partner in coaching.

But before then, the questions were: How will I get there? Can anyone see my struggle and help me? In my conscience, realised that I need to step out of myself and begin to do something. After a few years, my attitude changed as I realised that most people had begun coaching to improve their lives. I had felt that there seems to be no one I can go to when things go wrong, to talk through difficult situations. I loved mentoring and counselling, but that did not lead me to my personal fulfillment. And when I realised what my life would be like and wanted that which I desired at all cost, I found coaching which changed my life. I had get over past my fears to tell someone how I felt, rejection, losing it all, my limitations and beliefs that held me back. At some point in our lives we need help, a kind assistance and a spiritual beckoning to get to the other side- to build up on my journey of a beautiful discovery to learn about the new self.

I am contributing what I have learnt, and everything I have left I want to give and share with someone- the people I encounter through my coaching. I want to learn, share, and bring the will of more to each one of the persons I meet to consider mindset coaching as a means of transforming and renewing the mind, restructuring the thinking process for positivity.