Authentic Journeys Lifestyle and Cultural Mentoring And Coaching

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My Journey to a Career I Love Can Be Yours, TOO!:

My Journey to a Career I Love - Can be Yours, TOO! from Authentic Journeys on Vimeo.

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(This is a transcription of an audio conversation. I spoke, then wrote it out- listening to me, if you can will bring another perspective! Thanks.)
HI Everyone! I am Jennifer Kumar from Authentic Journeys and Alaivani.com. How are you?

There are so many ways that we can help ourselves look at our lives through a different lens – whether that’s through self-help books, or watching an inspirational show on TV, or maybe even going to a life coach or therapist. I have done that in my past to try to get advice on different things from an objective person that’s not my friend or family member, somebody who can help me sort things out that is not emotionally attached to me. I think there’s a value in that.

Sometimes depending on the person who I was going to for advice or assistance, I kind of felt some of them did go through processes like this to figure out their own lives at some point or other, but then other people didn’t. For the people who hadn’t gone through those processes, who were kind of pushing me through the process themselves, I felt they did not really have empathy for the process, maybe they had empathy for me, but not for the process. It is interesting that there are a lot of people out there who want to sell you into going through their program and their techniques and their methods, yet they haven’t actually utilized them for themselves. They never had the opportunity to do so for whatever reason.

I want to share with you a little about a career exploration technique that I would like to help guide you through if you’re interested, that I personally have been through myself. For the life coaching certification program I went through at the Life Purpose Institute, all of us who become certified have to have to go through the process ourselves by being coached by the teacher or our classmates in the actual self-exploration exercises or techniques. Our classmates coach us through these processes by helping us to brainstorm different ideas or maybe help us see things that we couldn’t see ourselves. Often times I think there are a lot of things we know about ourselves, but there are still some things we don’t know about ourselves that other people can actually see in us and help us understand that it exists. When that happens it’s pretty interesting and amazing.

One of the processes we go through to get certified is the career coaching/career mentoring. What this process is – is looking at different aspects of what would be the ideal career for you. Often times, many of us can get stuck into career paths that we kind of fall into by accident. Even though on some levels, they can definitely be good jobs and good careers because they actually do utilize a lot of our skills and interests and passions, there are still parts that we wish could be… a little bit … different.

I know, I went through this process.

I have always wanted to help immigrants get adjusted to this country, this culture in America, that’s what my life coaching business is about now, but it’s taken me quite some time to get to this point. I went to India, studied social work because I knew I could interact with people in everyday situations in villages and cities, see what life is like and adjust to a different culture. That would give me a perspective that maybe a lot of Americans who are therapists or life coaches might not have because maybe they haven’t actually lived in another country. Or, maybe if they have, it might be slightly different than my experience because I was pretty much the only foreigner most of the time. That meant I had to learn another language. I had to eat a different cuisine. I had to wear different clothes. I had to behave totally different. I didn’t really have access to Americans or American food, and wearing American clothes I could’ve gotten away with, but for the most part, I didn’t. That was just my choice for some situations. I thought, “Hey with this experience I can get a good job when I come back to America helping immigrants get adjusted to the culture here.” I did apply for those jobs, but I also applied for social work jobs too, so I landed into the social work side of things. It was good for me, I got to utilize a lot of the skills and talents such as:
- Helping people brainstorm their life
- Come up with new solutions to different challenges in their life
- Help them map out a path for their life
- Help them with everyday life challenges, like creating a daily schedule, how to get more exercise, how to interact better with their family members

There are so many other different kind of things I did to help people to improve their situation. In helping them, they helped me tremendously. I hope any of those people I helped in my previous job get to hear this- both my coworkers and the “clients” (I don’t really like that word.). The people I helped taught me a lot about themselves, but also about me. I think many times it was a mutual sharing. That’s what made it so amazing, it wasn’t me telling them what to do. It was about them sharing different aspects of their lives with me, us brainstorming different kinds of solutions to the problems, them going and trying out different things to see what fit them, and then based on that coming up with good goals to work on and good solutions to the problems. This was always from a positive viewpoint because I think my personal opinion is that is how people get motivated.

So, that being said, I’m here. I would like to guide you through that process, too because I personally went through that process, and it’s very eye-opening and it really helps you see you and your life in a different perspective. If you’d like to go through the process and want to know what it’s all about, drop me a line!
Send me an e-mail – jenkumar@gmail.com
Phone – (585)387-9325
Google “Authentic Journeys” journeys.alaivani.com
I really appreciate you taking the time to listen (read) this. Have a great day.
Thanks for spending your time here and listening! Eager to be in touch!

Many photos by my husband, Krishna Kumar

Authentic Journeys
Cultural and Lifestyle Coaching and Mentoring
Jennifer Kumar, P.O. Box 284, Pittsford, New York 14534

Contact Jennifer Kumar, Cultural Adjustment Coach and Mentor by e-mail.

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Created April 27, 2009 Akshaya Thirithya Day
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