Meet our Coach Members
John Bower
Harrison Assessments Expert Certificate, MA Cantab, ACPMM 21
What led you to coaching?
It feels as if I came to coaching entirely by accident, but actually it’s part of a lifelong pattern of helping and teaching others with a self-empowering style. I’d been interested in psychology and counseling for some years, but given the years of study required to get certified it stayed a distant dream, and instead I was getting on with my career as it was. When suddenly one day people started asking me to ‘coach’ them – a word I was only vaguely familiar with at the time – I began to quickly seek out skills to equip me to support them.
Who do you coach?
I use coaching skills in pretty much all I do – in management and in business development especially, and even with my kids at home – but I only take on retained coaching clients when they take the initiative. Typically my paying clients are senior executives and business leaders, who want to improve their business results or want to transform their quality of life by changing their occupation.
Tell us something unique about your coaching style.
Probably the most unique thing about my coaching style is speed: I rarely take engagements that last more than two or three sessions. This is very unusual in an environment that’s compensated by the hour, but I find I’m able to charge higher fees as a result! One of the major skills that makes this possible is my use of Harrison Assessments to speed up the process – I was the first person in Hong Kong to be certified by Harrison Assessments not only as an expert coach but as a trainer, and am still one of only a couple of people carrying the Expert certificate.
What is your greatest accomplishment?
The thing I’m most proud if is to have been able to come to one of the most competitive environments in the world – Hong Kong – as an uninvited guest and without a safety-net, and to thrive in a way that’s making a valuable contribution. I’ve created a living not just for myself but also for the families of my employees and several business partners, literally out of nothing but inspiration and communication. Long may that continue!
What are you reading and listening to these days?
At the moment I’m reading everything I can find about writing and direct marketing. Communication is the most important practice I can think of, and the written word is rapidly becoming the pivotally essential piece of life that it used to be in classical times. Musically I’m fairly cosmopolitan and often improvise on the piano. I like many more modern tunes (sorry I don’t know their names these days!) but this year I’ve been bingeing most often on the Goldberg Variations by Bach.
How do you relax and have fun?
Hey, I’m having fun pretty much all the time – sorry if that sounds cheesy or contrived, but it’s true and I count myself lucky! My conscious goal is to practice building a global business while being relaxed in the process. I find that regular yoga helps enormously, and also use meditation skills a lot both to relax and during coaching. Away from my office I enjoy playing with my kids, playing golf with my wife, swimming, and simply appreciating Hong Kong’s treasures.
Tel: 9684 0774
E-mail: John.Bower@HumanPotentialGlobal.com
Website: www.HumanPotentialGlobal.com
