Client Spotlight: Chris Ng

Chris Ng is the Vice President of Finance at Circle of Care. Along with his fellow senior leaders, Chris participated in 1-1 Executive Coaching with FOM Coach Lynn Stevens and in a follow-up Group Coaching program with FOM Coach Chari Schwartz. He continues to receive ongoing coaching through our Maintenance program.

“Many people think they need to be struggling in order to have a coach, and some people even think they don’t need a coach,” says Chris. “I reply to them by saying that all the top athletes in the world have a coach in order to get even better. It’s those without a coach who are struggling!”

Chris has also encountered people who believe that a coach needs to be better than them in their field in order to be effective. However Chris has seen firsthand that coaches don’t try to beat you at your own game; they’re skilled as coaches and their goal is to bring you up to the next level. 

“Coaching helps you see your blind spots and focus on your strengths more so than your weaknesses,” he says.

Coaching helped Chris see that while he’s always been clear about he wants in life, others often don’t have that same level of clarity. He also learned about the correlation between our behavior and achieving our goals, and how the two can be misaligned. This has helped him coach others to define what they really want and to work towards it.

Chris hadn’t formally defined his core values before coming to Frame of Mind Coaching™, and he found it to be enlightening. He was able to see how our values can dictate our actions, and vice versa. “I was surprised to discover that more people don’t take the time to sit down and identify their values, because our values define how we operate,” he says.

Coaching increased his awareness of how he views others and how they view him, and it improved his ability to see things from their point of view. “When you talk over a problem, you may not see it the same way, so it’s helpful to have another set of eyes on it,” he says. 

He also learned that he’s the same person in both his personal and professional life. “You can’t actually be one person at home and a different person at work,” he says. “Our characteristics are consistent.” He liked that Frame of Mind Coaching™ addresses the person as a whole, giving him a chance to work on his personal goals as well as his professional ones. 

“Through coaching, I gained clarity of thought,” he says. “I make sure my beliefs aren’t hampering me and I look at all the alternatives and different ways of viewing things.”

One of Chris’s coaching goals was to improve his thinking as an investor. “Talking through some of my tendencies during past economic crises, I was made aware of my negative habits,” he says. “This awareness allowed me to have a record year in the midst of a pandemic!”

During Group Coaching, Chris enjoyed the unique experience of having a coach work with the whole leadership team. “Chari has a broad view of the company, so she’s able to understand what we may not see ourselves, which is quite rare to have.” he says. “She knows our different perspectives and can coach us accordingly.”

Chris believes that the people who think they don’t need coaching are actually that people who need it the most. “I wish I had it earlier in my career,” he says.