PROTAGION
  • Proteges
    • Now What?
    • Career Support Guide
    • Career Goals >
      • Promotion / Raise
      • New Skills
      • Further Qualifications
      • Moving Countries
      • Switching: Consult/Contract/Startup
      • Transition: Specialism/Profession
      • Managing a Business
      • Portfolio Career
      • Purpose & Meaning
      • CPD
      • (Conference 1-5 Mar '21)
    • Example Professions >
      • Accounting
      • Actuarial
      • Asset & Investment Management
      • Risk Management
      • And more... >
        • Talent Management for Professionals
    • Our Services
    • Courses
  • Mentors
    • Encore Mentor
    • Featured Subset >
      • Anne - Australia
      • Boniswa - S Africa
      • Bradley - UK
      • Hafsa - S Africa
      • Lee - Hong Kong
      • Lusani - S Africa
      • Margaret - S Africa
      • Michael - S Africa
      • Natasha - UK
      • Nikki - UK
      • Sumit - India
      • Trevor - UK
      • And More on our Protege Platform...
  • Subscribe
  • Platform Login
    • Login
    • Sign Up: Free
  • Stories
    • Our Stories & Articles
    • Our Principles
    • Books
We help professionals achieve their career goals
OUR STORIES
Over 150 career-related articles and counting... Scroll down to read
NEED MORE CAREER SUPPORT? Our professional mentors & coaches are here to help
Join our in-a-group facilitated sessions & explore your career questions with us​
SUBSCRIBE TO JOIN OUR
IN-A-GROUP SESSIONS

Career Sense and Sensibility: Anne Ye's Personal Journey

7/9/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Anne Ye is a mid-thirties professional, and mom to two children. She grew up in South Africa, speaks Mandarin, Cantonese and English, and spent much of her career working for an international retailing group. She currently lives in Sydney, having relocated within the group to Australia a few years ago. Here is her career story so far:

Anne is a coach on the Protagion platform. To experience what we offer our proteges or arrange a mentor session with her, signup as a member:
SIGN UP NOW
​Formative years
“As a child, I remember wanting to be a teacher when I grew up. Later, it was to be a doctor. 

In high school, as I excelled in accounting, I chose to become a Chartered Accountant (CA) upon the recommendation of many well-meaning relatives and teachers. 
Planning my career path
Based on this choice, I planned my sensible career path as follows:
1. Study finance & accounting at the top university in my country
2. Serve my articles at one of the big 4 accounting firms
3. Qualify as a CA
4. Become a CFO (Chief Financial Officer)

Over the first decade of my career (including my university studies), I achieved the first 3 goals with total focus and relative ease. After qualifying as a CA, I joined the corporate world and began working steadily towards my final goal of becoming a CFO.  The company was awesome, colleagues were wonderful, my role was interesting, the pay was great and the potential was promising. On the surface, life was peaceful, stable & looking good!
Picture
On track?
However, as the years passed, my original ambition of becoming a CFO seemed less and less appealing. Instead, a sense of emptiness set in and grew stronger and stronger.  While my accountant friends around me were still working fervently towards the same CFO goal (and some began to reach it), I just couldn’t summon enough energy or focus to propel myself towards that goal. I realised that my original goal just did NOT interest me! I thought there must be something seriously wrong with me! I felt confused, but as I was not sure what to do, this feeling lingered on but was bearable. I suppressed it until the birth of my son brought on the urgency to re-examine my life. I felt a strong need to live a more fulfilling and meaningful life for me. 

Exploring my future
This is when I decided to see a life coach to help me find a solution (upon the suggestion of my wise husband who was seeing a coach and benefited from the experience). Being an accountant, I am sceptical by nature, so it took me a few months to do tons of research to feel comfortable with this novel idea of life coaching and another few months to find a coach that I felt would be practical as well as resonate with me personally. I found her! A Chartered Accountant turned life coach; she was very gentle yet insightful. She asked such powerful questions that empowered me to find myself. Just 3 sessions in, I was able to have a clear look at my true self which I had been unable to do on my own after more than a decade!

My light bulb moment
She used the analogy that I was an apple tree among orange trees: that’s why becoming a CFO was of no interest to me and there was nothing wrong with me. It was a huge light bulb moment for me! The profound impact continued after I left that session and one day I had an epiphany! “Why not become a coach myself?” popped into my mind while I was in the middle of a financial meeting. Having understood myself better, I examined the various aspects of being a life coach and how it fit in with my interests and natural talents. The ability to work anywhere anytime was also very appealing to me, especially with small children. Having benefited immensely from the power of coaching myself, I felt I would be able to help other people in similar situations as me and help them find their apple tree selves. 
Picture
Picture
Orange Grove Photo: Rolf F. Katzenberger ; https://www.flickr.com/photos/rfkatzenberger/7595759332
Putting my plan into action
So, I researched more about how to become a coach and decided to give it a try to see if it was really what I wanted to do.
…and…
I love it! I feel more energetic and happy when I am coaching and I get to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives which is priceless! 

Although I haven’t changed to my specific childhood aspirations of being a teacher or doctor, I am back on the right path for me, as the essence is the same i.e. to help other people. My new, inspired journey has just begun!”
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.


    Follow @Protagion

    Author

    Bradley Shearer
    ​Founder of Protagion
    My Personal Journey
    I'd love to hear your stories

    SHARE YOUR
    STORY WITH ME

    Categories

    All
    Active Career Management
    Branching Out
    Connection
    Consulting
    Contracting
    Future Of Work
    Inspiration
    Leadership
    Learning
    Mentoring
    Non Executive Directors (NEDs)
    Personal Journeys
    Professions
    Psychology
    Real Life Examples
    Role Options
    Routes To The Top

    Tweets by protagion

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017

    RSS Feed

"NOW WHAT?" - a common question our visitors ask...
​WE CAN HELP!
Examples of common career goals, with resources for each: promotion, new skills, further study/qualifications, moving countries, switching into consulting / contracting / startup, transition to new specialism or profession, managing a business, portfolio career, purpose & meaning, CPD, and more... 


Follow @Protagion
Home / Proteges
> ​Services
> Subscribe
> CPD
​​

​Mentors

Our Stories / Blog

Sign Up to use our System
​
​
Privacy Policy​
Career Development and Talent Management for professionals: accountants, actuaries, analysts, asset managers, bankers, CFAs, data scientists, engineers, investment managers, risk managers, and more...
Protagion currently offers services in English, although some of our mentors & coaches speak other languages too. ​Please email us if you have any questions.
Picture

​© 2017-2023 PROTAGION LIMITED (10721032) is a company registered in England and Wales.
Registered Address: 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX
Photos used under Creative Commons from Pjposullivan1, paul.horsefield, flazingo_photos
  • Proteges
    • Now What?
    • Career Support Guide
    • Career Goals >
      • Promotion / Raise
      • New Skills
      • Further Qualifications
      • Moving Countries
      • Switching: Consult/Contract/Startup
      • Transition: Specialism/Profession
      • Managing a Business
      • Portfolio Career
      • Purpose & Meaning
      • CPD
      • (Conference 1-5 Mar '21)
    • Example Professions >
      • Accounting
      • Actuarial
      • Asset & Investment Management
      • Risk Management
      • And more... >
        • Talent Management for Professionals
    • Our Services
    • Courses
  • Mentors
    • Encore Mentor
    • Featured Subset >
      • Anne - Australia
      • Boniswa - S Africa
      • Bradley - UK
      • Hafsa - S Africa
      • Lee - Hong Kong
      • Lusani - S Africa
      • Margaret - S Africa
      • Michael - S Africa
      • Natasha - UK
      • Nikki - UK
      • Sumit - India
      • Trevor - UK
      • And More on our Protege Platform...
  • Subscribe
  • Platform Login
    • Login
    • Sign Up: Free
  • Stories
    • Our Stories & Articles
    • Our Principles
    • Books