Proud life coach, John Allen, is an outgoing, caring person, having climbed the career ladder in sales and marketing from sales executive to managing director of a leading international publishing company in South Africa. With his extensive experience in management, facilitation, mentoring, and leading various trade associations, along with his passion for mountaineering and the good things in life, John recognised his aptitude for assisting people from all ages and backgrounds to appreciate their potential and realise their dreams.
Name of Practice: John Allen Coaching
Where: Cape Town, Western Cape
Born: 1941
Qualifications: Sales & Marketing Diploma-UK; Financial Management Diploma – Damelin SA; Strategic Management Planning Diploma – Wits Business School; New Insights Certified Life Coach
Specialises in: Visualization coaching. The objective is to help the client create, develop and realise a personal vision, a vision for their career or business, for their employees (if they own a business) or for their family, beginning with what they are passionate about. Strategic planning and development of business plans for small businesses.
USP: Over 40 years business and life experience divided between UK, SA and South East Asia. A people’s person, with a passion for helping people to realise their true potential.
Fees: On application only. Discounts offered for advance payments.
COMENSA Registered: No
Contact: Click here
In my opinion, someone who wants to hire a life coach is entitled to know and understand the person with whom they are going to be developing a powerful and empowering relationship. For this reason I have tried, below, to share, as openly as I can, a little about me, my parents, my upbringing and my career.
I have a lot of life – and business – experience to call upon and I am passionate about what life coaching can do – after all, it has changed my life. If what you read below resonates with you and you’d like to talk with me about experiencing a great coaching programme with me, then I’d be delighted to hear from you!
I was born in the UK and educated up to university entrance level. I come from a family of three – two sisters, one older and one younger.
My parents
My parents were a major influence on my life, both in terms of my moral upbringing and my career path. They instilled in me the high values of honesty, integrity and respect for human dignity; an appreciation for literature and music, in all its forms, the theatre and the arts across the board.
My mother was the passive one, the peacemaker and, sadly, the brunt of my father’s frustrations.
My father had a very strict upbringing, and as a result had high expectations of himself and his family. I was expected to do well academically, in sport, and more or less in any activity in which I was involved. Second best was hardly acceptable. This lead to some fear of my father and a certain amount of conflict between us, though I found myself always seeking his approval and trying to meet his expectations. I never did perform to his high expectations and was thus considered as something of a disappointment in my childhood and teenage years.
Despite all this, my father was a great family man and extremely supportive in times of crisis. He introduced me to the mountains at the age of 12, for which I am eternally grateful. Mountaineering became one of my great life passions, gave us a common interest, identified my leadership strengths, instilled a care for my fellow men, and introduced me to many wonderful people around the world.
My career
As a young adult I had no professional career guidance. Having a Father who spent all of his working life in the book publishing industry, I was surrounded by books from the day I was born, and exposed to its world throughout my formative years. My Mother was an elocution teacher and into amateur dramatics, both acting and producing, which led to a love of the theatre.
I wanted to go to university and through the influence of my closest friends and the media, choose to study for a career in the technical sciences as opposed to the arts. (Scientists, engineers, IT specialists were in most demand). I was accepted for a place at an affiliated London University College to study for a BSC in Civil Engineering but did not achieve the academic results required. (NB. A life coach would have been of great benefit to me at this time).
Life was good in the UK in the 1960s. Employment was high, so finding a job was not an issue, it was just a matter of deciding what you wanted to do. With a certain amount of pressure from my father, and with some reluctance, I decided to enter the UK book industry and ended up working for the same publishing company, Penguin Books for 37 years, where I worked my way up from apprentice status, to MD of the South African Company.
Whilst in retrospect I have few regrets, met lots of really interesting people, generally enjoyed myself and was very successful, I did at times become a member of the ‘IF ONLY’ and ‘Never Good Enough’ syndrome clubs, (my own self expectations), although in saying this, I was able to indulge in many of my passions. I was fortunate to visit many fascinating countries, including Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, before going out to SA, early 1975, on a 2 year contract, primarily to set up a sales and marketing operation. Experiencing the first signs of real change in SA, I saw exciting opportunities for personal growth and development, which led to me staying and making a life for myself here.
Not having met my expectations academically, I was determined to improve myself and acquire more qualifications. This resulted in Diplomas in Marketing and Financial Management, together with Assertive Training and Business Strategic Planning Certificates.
I served the SA Book Industry as chairperson and president of a number of the trade bodies, which enabled me to develop and strengthen my facilitation, management and negotiating skills.
Post retirement
Having taken early retirement in 1997, I was very unsure of what career to pursue.
I only knew that I wanted a complete change, away from the book industry. This resulted in a move from Johannesburg to Cape Town. After a few challenging experiences I moved into the residential property business, where I was first exposed to a life and mentoring coach, through the agency I represented. I was fascinated, the concept just grabbed me and I realized that this was what I wanted to do. I could really use my own life and work experience to help people, irrespective of age and who they were, to empower them to have the courage to change there lives, to do what they really wanted, and to reach for their dreams.
Life Coaching
Having browsed the Internet for suitable courses, I came across New Insights Africa, arranged a meeting with Bill Burridge, and immediately signed up. It took me longer to acquire the qualification than I expected, due to the profound changes and shifts that the course made to the way I looked at myself, my family, friends and the world outside. It was a truly empowering experience, and answered for me, many of the frustrating questions and stories that had plagued me throughout my life – judging, blaming, justifying and not always taking full responsibility for my actions and decisions.
This has given me the opportunity to make a significant difference to other people’s lives.
My speciality
I specialize in what I call ‘visualization coaching’. That is helping my clients to create, develop and realise their vision, whether that be a personal vision, a vision for their business, their career or their family.
In addition I like to assist with ‘barrier breaking’ by imparting self-leadership, personal growth and development skills within both personal and business mentoring contexts. I love to work with both individuals and executives who…
- Are stuck in a comfort zone; bored, afraid to break out, or anxious about confronting change (for your life to change, you have to change).
- Feel frustrated by a lack of achievement and success
- Are experiencing a lack of growth in personal, career and/or business life
- Have lost clarity and focus in their business and/or personal life.
My personal philosophy:
I passionately believe that everyone has the potential to do anything they want to do. We are only limited by our aptitude, related to our mental and physical abilities.
It’s wonderful to have dreams and aspirations. The greatest regret can be never finding the courage to realize them. The major reason for this is the fear of failure.
If you become a client of mine, I will work with you and do my utmost to help you to…
- Discover your dreams and aspirations, (both personal and business) and turn these into dynamic, inspirational, meaningful and realistic goals.
- Identify the barriers that are holding you back from achieving these goals
- Break down those barriers by building up a strong positive self belief system, which will give you the confidence and courage to strive for all the things you want for yourself in all areas of your life.
- Find the path that will enable you to realize your dreams and aspirations, while guiding and mentoring you along the way.
- Stay on that path towards bigger and greater achievements. (Getting it all is one challenge, keeping it all is a bigger one)
The greatest gift that you can give to anyone is your happiness. You can only do this if you are doing what you love and loving what you do.
John’s style of coaching was caring and considerate yet also very goal-directed. His business insights were extremely helpful in keeping the process realistic while his personal enthusiasm encouraged imaginative exploration. I felt heard and supported throughout the whole process.
The trouble with being in a deep hole is that there is no light to see a way out or to realize that we have the inner-strength required, to climb out of it.
Life-Coaching provides a bright ‘torch’ that, when expertly pointed in the right directions, enables us to creatively and logically discover unseen pathways and possibilities. It presents effective techniques to cultivate the missing elements, that assist us in actualizing our goals … and in my case, it was a lack of courage and self-confidence.
My coach, John Allen, not only encouraged me to to set ambitious goals from the outset, but then also patiently and systematically ‘followed through’ by providing guided, practical techniques to assist in developing a clear ‘road-map’ to achieving those goals.
Throughout the process John’s genuinely caring nature was always evident. His guidance while coaching me through the techniques that enabled me to dig deeply within and attain the state-of-mind required to pursue my goals effectively, was insightful and stimulating.
In addition to Life Coaching, John Allen offers a Business Mentoring service that has been absolutely indispensable to me. I am a self-employed individual with a technical background. Like many others in similar circumstances, I have acquired all the technical skills that I require to produce and offer competitive products and technical services, but without any experience in a corporate environment, I have lacked business ‘grooming’. John’s substantial experience in a corporate field affords him a wealth of knowledge about business best-practices and etiquette, which he has shared with me in an open and enthusiastic manner. The saying goes that ‘two brains are better than one’. Having John’s perspective on my business matters has also provided the benefit of having a personal adviser offer an additional point-of-view on several critical matters. I find that his perspective is often refreshing and thought-provoking – which inevitably results in better decision making.
Our interaction gives me more clarity and focus about my business in terms of where I want it to go, analysing existing opportunities and identifying new ones, and the resources required to pursue them. I find the experience of using John simultaneously as my personal life coach and business mentor invaluable. I have been able to apply so much of what I learned about myself to assist me in confronting and overcoming the challenges of my business and formulating a vision for its future, and relating this to what I want for my family and me personally.
John is a passionate human being who commits to the task-at-hand and to the success of his proteges. His openness in drawing and sharing from his own personal experiences and his irrepressible positive outlook provide a huge source of inspiration and motivation.
John has gone from being my ‘Life Coach’ to my ‘Coach for Life’ and I sincerely thank and solute him.
Jose Heitor
This serves to confirm that I have known John since October 2011. From that period he has been my personal and business coach. He has proved to be very knowledgeable and stimulating coach, who is always able to bring the best out of me. Within the short time he has been my coach, I have gained such valuable information and experience that I use for my everyday activities. With him on my side I have been able to achieve my set goals for the past six months and am so proud about sponsoring renovations of a church from my community (thanks to him). Without any hesitation I can recommend him to any goal-oriented and ambitious person who does not have the guts to challenge his fears.
Yours faithfully
Mbuyi Njozela