The Pursuit Of Personal Freedom, The Power To Choose – Exclusive Interview With Zovig Garboushian

Zovig Garboushian, CEO of Boldness Ablaze Coaching, is an Executive Coach and Speaker who focuses on advancing women in leadership and in their careers. Her vision is a world where women go after what they want boldly and unapologetically. She works with leaders by helping them deepen their self-awareness, ease their extremes, trust themselves deeply, and self-manage with clarity, competence, and consciousness.

Zovig Garboushian, Boldness Ablaze Coaching

Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.

I’m Zovig Garboushian, a first-generation Armenian woman, and a former New Yorker. Now I live outside Seattle, WA, with my husband Stephen and our two incredible dogs, Frankie and Duke.

I’ve had my own coaching and speaking practice, Boldness Ablaze Coaching, for three years. Before that, I had a twisty career journey that started in magazine media and marketing, shifted to career development, shifted again to organizational change, and now has led me to executive coaching.

I’m known for being creative and high-energy, intense, and fiery, and full of love. I am attracted to people, places, and things that are bold and vibrant, sometimes even a little wild. It doesn’t take much to get me excited and when something fails, I recover quickly because there is always more to try.

I’m a multi-passionate. When people talk about finding their passion, I always think: Must we have only one? I’ve been passionate about arts and crafts, music, fashion, travel, people, and home decor. Passions can come and go, and I think it’s okay should be encouraged. The world is full of things to be passionate about, explore, and experiment with. Why would we limit ourselves to one thing?

What is your business name and how do you help your clients?

My business is Boldness Ablaze Coaching. I’m an executive coach and speaker; I primarily work with women in leadership and partner with organizations to help them advance their leaders to be more conscious, awake, and aware.

Here’s how I roll: I am dedicated to helping my clients get more connected to their most natural way of being, their most authentic selves. I help them get beyond their identities as a job title, personality type, or skill set and, instead, help them know themselves—their perceptions, attitudes, and essence. The more deeply we all get those parts of ourselves, the freer we feel to experiment and fail, learn and try again without making it mean anything.

Women in leadership experience a special kind of pressure to do things perfectly lest they be perceived as incapable or unable to handle it. But that pressure puts them in a box and demands they be one way and only that one way. So, I help them pursue personal freedom—freedom to experiment, freedom to be more of themselves, freedom to explore their hunches and express themselves uniquely in any situation and feel good about it.

I help my clients tap into their natural way of being – different than their strengths or skills, different than their personality – who they are naturally in the world that adds value without having to try. I firmly believe that when we connect with that part of us, we can’t make a mistake; we can only get better and become more of who we are meant to be. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I named my business Boldness Ablaze Coaching because when you apply fire to anything, it transforms. Fire is the element that allows us a comfortable home and nourishment. And fire within ourselves is the energy that moves us beyond our personal boundaries and pushes us to take risks. Inner fire represents passion and excitement, and curiosity. When we are ablaze, we can’t be stopped.

What is your work inspired by?

My work is inspired by the pursuit of personal freedom, the power to choose, and the desire to be myself in all situations—at work, at home, in my relationships, and most importantly, with myself. It’s inspired by witnessing countless women move mountains every day yet still not feel the right to be themselves or create their lives as they choose, and that ignites my fire. I try to work from the big-heart-open-mind mindset, meaning come at everything with a lot of love and be willing to be wrong (even when it hurts!).

What is the biggest challenge your clients face?

Trusting themselves. Here’s the thing: my clients always know what to do. They know how to solve problems, and they know how to communicate with timing, tact, and assertion. They are just as analytically minded as any of their male counterparts. But because women are constantly deflecting a world that tells us how to think, what to do, who to be (or not be), and how to present ourselves, our truth can get muddled. That’s why we focus on getting connected to their core truth in coaching. A great coach said to me that not all life coaching is executive coaching, but all executive coaching is life coaching, and it’s true. Being an effective leader at the executive level takes deep and unshakable self-trust and to create that takes courage and heart. I’m on the same ride as my clients, so we may as well do it together.

Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!

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