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An Incredible Coaching Success Story Built on Diversity

May 15, 2017

Do you find your struggles in life often come from judging yourself and/or others? As a coach, do you find your clients struggling with comparing themselves to others, or perhaps struggling to fit in? Or maybe your clients feeling their identity is threatened by perceived differences of others.

It can sometimes be easy to look through a lens of differences when interacting with other people, especially in an expat community. Noticing differences instead of the similarities can create disconnection, unease and unsupportive emotions.

From one perspective it can seem there are many differences between people – even in the same community or family – but in the end, we are all driven by similar core needs and desires.

As humans, we experience similar fears; like feeling not loved or belonging, and similar desires; such as being heard and being part of a community/family, being accepted and loved.

As trainers and coaches at Empower World where we regularly support people from a diverse range of backgrounds, cultures and experiences, we notice when we share our stories and bring out what is truly important, people often connect easily because they allow themselves to be open and vulnerable.

If we can recognise we want similar things, and express it in different ways – then we can let go of judgement, embrace diversity and the richness it brings.

We also notice there are many values shared by different cultures, including love, growth, peace, contribution, support and more, as well as the highs and lows in their daily lives.

Rachel Petero, Founder of Rise2025, recognised these commonalities through her personal journey and experience of working with many diverse cultures. As a Maori woman raised in New Zealand, who lived in the UK and Qatar for many years, and now back home – she noticed this thread of wanting to belong, be heard, be empowered, be in charge of destiny and desire to contribute to others.

Rachel experienced the Empower World coach training programme and recognised how coaching powerfully supports others where she found herself opening a coach training programme specifically for indigenous women. Her vision is to connect women who want to experience a leadership training reflecting their way of being, doing and creating – and encompasses shared values for each culture she is working with.

Rachel says, “We develop indigenous women globally through an applied learning pathway of international coaching best practice blended with indigenous values… And Rise2025 enables indigenous women to lead and coach their whanau (family), communities, corporations and nations into a self-determining future.”

The programme supports people to come together and become connected and work collectively.

As Rachel says,
“Rise2025 is a year strategic vision which transcends cultures, countries and continents. We facilitate a values-based coaching foundation, which embeds universal indigenous practices at the core of an internationally recognised coaching framework.”


In our own lives, if we want to experience the richness of diversity and growth, as well as contribute to others there are some simple strategies we can adopt, which can be utilised in our communities and even in our own family.

We encourage you to get curious about people who you see as different from you and put on another lens and ask questions to support you to understand the following:

  • Why they do what they do. What do they ultimately want to achieve?
  • What are their deepest motivations and aspirations. And how do they strive to achieve them?
  • What might be their deepest fears and how do they avoid them?
  • What do they value most and how do they express it?
  • How do they express their love, connection and contribution. Is it through words, acts of service, gifts, or something else?
  • And just notice how similar we all are – expressed in different unique ways.

If we start to open up our world and recognise we are all doing the best we can with the knowledge and experiences we have been through, then the world can become a truly rich ‘tapestry of life’ and wonder.

Listen to Empower World’s Coaching and Leadership Podcast Episode-87 where Jeanine interviews Rachel Petero. Rachel shares what it is like to do what she loves: coaching through an indigenous lens – as well as giving back to the coaching community through her ICF role.

Episode-87 can be found here, on iTunes or ‪on Stitcher.

Be Empowered.

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