Life Coaching With A Twist: A Combination Of Theory, Profiling, And Personal Values & Experiences – Interview With Sandra Fourie
Sandra Fourie is a relationship and life coach known for her ability to integrate tools such as CliftonStrengths and Enneagram into the daily lives of her clients. Her workshops are based on positive psychology and design thinking, assisting clients to develop an emotional language to express themselves – enhancing their relationships with themselves and others.
Sandra Fourie’s coaching style is based on her personal development journey. What started as a personal branding experience, to get clarity on her own identity, resulted in a private practice where her clients experience the same path, through facilitation, coaching, and making use of certain tools. With fifteen years of CliftonStrengths experience and 5 years of experience as an Enneagram practitioner, she created a niche for herself in the life coaching industry. She combines the two tools/assessments for a holistic approach. One’s body, mind, and spirit need to be appreciated, explored, and developed to live fully and balanced.
Sandra Fourie, Relationship & Life Coach
What is your business all about? Tell us more about your ideal client.
‘Bläsǝm’ is a private coaching practice and all about personal development, soft skill development, and holding space for being human. The main outcomes of my sessions and workshops are a better understanding of yourself to have healthier relationships. I use CliftonStrengths Assessment and Integrative9 Enneagram as the foundation for my workshops. My foundation workshops are based on conceptualising these two tools and integrating them in everyday life. My focus is on individuals, couples, and families. I also do teambuilding for small business teams and smaller, more specialised workshops, for focus groups.
My ideal client is someone who puts in the time, effort, and energy to fully engage in workshops and the exercises I give for ‘homework’ to prepare for the next sessions or needed for a new healthy habit to establish. My favorite client does maintenance sessions after their foundation workshop is completed.
My youngest client was 11 years old, and to date, my oldest was 72 years old. Most of my clients range between the ages of 35 and 50 and are individuals or couples with school-going children.
What advice can you give to other life coaches?
It is good to look to others and see what is being done in the field of work, but I’ve experienced with coaching, you must bring yourself into the equation. People relate to people. People relate even more to authentic people. A coach is an individual first before they lay down their skills, knowledge, and experience in a coaching space. Know yourself inside and out because you will get clients that will trigger some of your personality traits, insecurities, and/or trauma. Know your limits and be honest about them with your clients. Refer clients that need something or someone else rather than a coach. Then, the final one is to draw up a client/coach agreement that needs to be signed before sessions start. Not all your clients will have to be reminded of the terms and conditions, but you will get one (or a few) that must be reminded. And it is better to be prepared for it than not.
Have you encountered any major challenges during your journey, and how have they affected you?
I’ve had clients in the past who became very defensive and climbed with everything they’ve got into my character because of their challenge to hold space and be comfortable with their own intense emotions of fear, rejection, and anxiety to face certain truths. This being said, it is also during these times that I need to assess what the client said about me and towards me, to make sure that it has nothing to do with the way I come across or that my biases aren’t blocking my authenticity which can lead to clients distrusting me and immediately making the space unsafe.
Some clients come to me for a quick fix and are very disappointed when I can’t give them a five (5) step plan for a successful life (the definition of success is so broad).
Share a proud moment from your career.
If I may, I would like to share two proud moments. The first one was when my website went live on 12 February 2022. I created the content and designed the website myself, which was fun and a technical challenge. What made it such a proud moment was that I was brave enough to put myself ‘out there.’ I wrote things about myself I never thought I would, especially not for everyone to see, judge, and, most of all, use to form a perception of me.
The second proud moment that stood out for me was moving from my home office to a commercial office (June 2023), paying rent every month. A big celebration accompanied it. A year later, I still think it was one of the best decisions for my practice. Providing my clients with a consistently safe space for them to explore, share, and grow. Establishing the ‘bläsǝm’ brand even more.
Finally, do you have any particular pieces of advice or words of wisdom that you´d like to share with our readers?
I cannot stress enough that getting curious about yourself is so rewarding. If you understand yourself better you can regulate your emotions better, by regulating your emotions better you can have healthier relationships. By having healthier relationships, you have a much better chance of living a joyful life. And I’m not saying that all the relationships in your life are your responsibility; I understand that family and work relationships are complicated. But, by understanding yourself better, you can also clarify healthier boundaries. As Brené Brown says, ‘Clear is kind, unclear is unkind’.
Another piece of advice I can give is to try to think about things as ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ rather than ‘positive or negative’, ‘good or bad’. For example, if you talk about ‘unhealthy habits’ (it can change more easily), it sounds different than referring to them as ‘bad habits’ (condemning). Choice of words
The first step is always the hardest to take. If you don’t take it, you will never know what you might discover.
For those interested in learning more about your services, what steps can they take to connect with you?
I love connecting and making connections. You can learn more about my services by visiting my website. There, you will find links to external websites to gain more insight into the tools (CliftonStrengths and Integrative Enneagram) I use. I’m also on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
To make direct contact with me you can book a 30-minute FREE Zoom consultation on my website or send me a WhatsApp (+2771 387 2936) or email (sandra@blasem.co.za). My practice is situated in South Africa, in a small town called Somerset West in the Western Cape, approx. 40-minute drive from the well-known Cape Town.
