In all honesty it didn’t start off as a noble cause but evolved into something that I find special: Helping men get their Mojo back.
Back in 1997, I was a photojournalist, and not a very happy one. I didn’t have a great sense of purpose and direction and was in a career I had kind of fallen into. That year I was invited to attend a self-development seminar, and boy, did the lights come on! It was essentially coaching and what struck me was that I realised after all these years I wasn’t that stupid! You see, I had really struggled academically at school, working my ass off to get the minimum requirement to become an officer in the British Army. I thought that my grades were me and that because I got flatline average grades, that made me flatline average.
I could not have been more wrong.
On the seminar, the instructor shared ideas that I recognised as ‘truth’ but which I had never learned about or had access to, my intuition told me that I ‘was home.’
He spoke about telling the truth to oneself, being authentic, not being so worried about what ‘you think others are thinking about you,’ and being straight in communication.
My world seemed to expand in a moment as I saw new frontiers, new possibilities and new opportunities unfold before my eyes. I knew that this was what I wanted to do and by the end of the seminar, I had my future mapped out, or at least a place to aim at. I could see not only possibilities for myself, but also in helping others in their lives too.
I acknowledged that I was a novice and needed some guidance and coaching to get going and hired a coach to assist, most of all in having a target to focus on. Pretty soon we settled on entrepreneurs, which were in no short supply this being the time of the dot.com mania in the late nineties, where work, money and opportunities seemed to exist aplenty.
In 2001 I finally made the move back to South Africa and kept on with the coaching however my focus drifted and whilst I still coached entrepreneurs and small business owners mostly that initial velocity waned somewhat. At this time coaching began to burgeon.
In 2011 I had my next ‘re-invention’ which was as a ‘Teacher of Courage.’ Boy was I and well, just about everyone enthused by this! But alas, nothing really got going as I had imagined and hoped.
I couldn’t work it out.
Then, in 2021, I attended a 9-month marketing course with 15 other consultants and coaches. I was the youngest on the course at 54 the oldest been 84! I did because I was sick of not being able to introduce my services to people where things would happen on the scale, I believed was possible.
The instructor on the course, Robert Middleton, an expert in small business marketing, challenged my attachment and enthusiasm for the word courage by saying that it’s pitfall, as it is a direct challenge to people’s – particularly men’s – ego; after all we are quite self-deluded when it comes to our perception of ourselves, versus reality! Many of us think we are far more courageous, more often, than we are!
I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but Mojo made an appearance. It’s a wonderful word, full of mystery, humour, laughter, music, energy, life-force and so on. In essence mojo is ‘courage repackaged.’ Courage is all about heart – as is Mojo – from the Latin cor and the age meaning movement. At last I had found my groove and when I – along with universe’s help – came up with helping men get their Mojo back, the response was far more enthusiastic because I was addressing a target market as well as a need, and after all, many of us men had either lost our Mojo, never found it, or want it back! (I define Mojo as P.E.A.C.H – Passion, Energy, Authenticity, Confidence and Humour.)
So, I guess men have ‘found me’ as I have ‘found men’ too. Over the years 95% of my clients have been men. So, I guess it wasn’t really that complicated other than when I look in the mirror, I see people like me that I coach I suppose like energy attracts like energy.
And I suppose as an ‘accidental coach of men’ I am now seeing just now important it is and that men and young boys get the help and support we need, as women and young girls in many areas surge ahead, which is a great thing, as this video, below, so eloquently and beautifully depicts.
If you’re interested in getting your Mojo back, please be in touch or at least why don’t you click on this link and find out what’s your Mojo-Meter Rating is?
Mojestically yours,
Si.
P.S. What help do you need? Drop me a line
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