Client Spotlight: Nathalie Cardinal
Nathalie Cardinal is the General Manager for the Spyro international division of SPI Health and Safety. The Owner of SPI and a former FOM client, Martin Tremblay, introduced her to Frame of Mind Coaching™ knowing she would find it helpful. “He had a great experience and thought that we could all benefit,” says Nathalie.
After meeting with Kim Ades, President and Founder of FOM, and having Kim speak for her SPI leadership team, Nathalie was sold. “What resonated with me was Kim’s concept of ‘what you focus on grows’, which is simple yet profound,” says Nathalie. “And our beliefs – how much we’re driven in life by many of our beliefs.”
She was matched with FOM Coach Becca Woodring Buttermore. “I adore Becca,” she says, “She’s an amazing individual who became a friend and a great mentor.” Nathalie describes her as supportive, understanding and someone who she could say anything to. She appreciated how Becca helped her understand that things aren’t just happening to her – she is responsible for her own happiness.
At work, Nathalie always wanted to over-achieve, please others and make sure everyone was fine. “I was struggling with that because leading now is quite different that it was 10 years ago,” she says. “We all need to adapt and I was trying to find my place in all of it.” Nathalie knew that she had the right reflexes, good experience and a heart bigger than the world, but it wasn’t matching up with her deeper purpose, values or goals. She needed realignment.
“To be a good leader, you have to really listen, and that’s something I needed to work on,” she says. “I learned to give meaning to what I was hearing and to let people come to me, give me ideas, make mistakes and work through things together.”
In order to learn these valuable leadership skills, she had to allow Becca to help her dig deep into her life. “All my life, I never thought I was good enough,” says Nathalie. She has always put a tremendous amount of pressure on herself to make others feel important and valued.
Since coaching, her team has noticed that she listens more, is more focused and is extremely disciplined. “I learned that disciplined thoughts and actions equal disciplined people,” she says. “When you have discipline, people value your opinion and want to work with you. It’s also good for people in your personal life to see how discipline leads to results.”
As an energetic person, Nathalie initially found it hard to slow down in life. “Slowing me down is the hardest thing in the world,” she says. “But I knew I needed to do that in order to become a better person, leader, mom and spouse.” Coaching helped her see that by taking a pause sometimes, she’s able to see things with much more clarity.
Coaching also helped her understand her behaviors and what she needed to work on. “I wasn’t always achieving the right results, and now instead of just blaming myself, I go deeper and try to understand why.”
Nathalie used to say that her goal was to help people, but she discovered that her true purpose is actually to learn from people. As a leader, she used to jump to solutions and give advice. Now she helps guides her team while letting them learn and experience things on their own.
She learned that it wasn’t just important for her to have an impact; she wanted to make a deeper change. “If you just want to have a quick impact and be a ‘good enough’ leader, that’s fine,” she says, “but if you want to have a deeper impact, you need to go deeper with yourself through coaching.”
Becca and Nathalie took the time to explore her core values. “I need to be with people, and I believe in groups, family and teams,” she says. “It was really important for me to get back to that.”
During coaching, she was going through a very difficult period with a personal relationship, and she had stopped loving herself. “Coaching helped me understand why I was in that place and how to get out of it,” she says. “I learned to be the real me again – someone who is fun, adventurous and curious.”
Nathalie also learned what some of her detractors are, like “I’m not good enough,” “I’m an overachiever,” or “I’m a stickler for rules.” When these thoughts pop up now, she pauses, listens, digs deeper, challenges them, and ultimately respects herself.
Through coaching, Nathalie learned the art of forgiveness, letting go of the past, and trusting that it’s going to be OK in the end. Her family has noticed that the dark cloud that was hovering over her is now gone and she’s blooming again.
“It brought a deeper meaning to my life and I feel a stronger bond to my purpose,” she says. “You can’t put a number on it, but the ROI is evident in all areas of my life.”
Because of her experience with Frame of Mind Coaching™, Nathalie believes she’s a better mom, spouse, coach, leader and friend. “Coaching is like having someone next to you to steer you in the right direction when the going gets tough,” she says. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what level you’re at, if you have the opportunity to be coached, it’s going to serve you in every aspect of your life. It’s a gift that you give to yourself.”