What’s It Like to Attend a Newfield Course?

This post was written by Jennifer Einolf, a Newfield graduate of the Coaching for Personal & Professional Mastery program and a member of Newfield’s Alumni Committee.

“It was not that I changed, it was that I learned to access all of the parts of me that were hidden, locked down, and misunderstood. It is not hyperbole to state that I am transformed.”

When did you complete your Newfield training?

I attended Newfield for the Foundations Course in September 2015 and I finished The Art and Practice of Ontological Coaching (TAPOC) training in May 2016. I am a baby coach. One of my friends used that term to describe himself to someone else and they asked him how in the world he coaches babies. I think the term is apt for a beginner coach and I hope to always be, at least in some way, a baby coach. For me, that means that I’m always ready to understand that there’s so much more to learn and I’m open and playful enough to go learn it.

How do you use the Newfield training in your work?

I attended Newfield with the intention of starting my own coaching practice. And that’s what I’ve done. I am a clarity coach, which means I partner with my clients to get clarity on the thing that’s keeping them up at two in the morning about the thing that they really want to make happen in their lives. As I’ve gone through this process with my clients, I’ve earned my own clarity as well. There were so many contributing experiences on my path to coaching. I look back now and I see how many seemingly unrelated events, experiences, educational opportunities, preferences, and even apparent accidents led me to coaching. My Newfield experience was the crucible where all of those random ingredients were compounded.

How did Newfield impact your life beyond your work?

My time with Newfield at the Boulder conference was transformational. I started to refer to my life in terms of BB (Before Boulder) and AB (After Boulder). I have never been so fully free to be who I am. It was not that I changed, it was that I learned to access all of the parts of me that were hidden, locked down and misunderstood. It is not hyperbole to state that I am transformed.

It was hard work. It was baffling at times and often very difficult, but it was worth every bit of struggle, attention, playfulness, curiosity and relinquishing of control that had to happen.  The training allowed me to experiment with new kinds of learning. I’ve always been a quick learner when I had to learn things intellectually—I’ve lived in my head most of my life. Newfield introduced me to a variety of ways to explore my emotions and my somatic wisdom. I loved that I wasn’t learning alone. Working with my study groups and my coaches and other members of my cohort provided me with a sense of community and informed my learning at a deeper level.

What was your favorite part of the Newfield experience?

At first, I felt this question was way too difficult to answer. There are so many things I cherish about my experience. However, when I really stop to think, I realize that my favorite part was the people. It was the time with Julio, Veronica, and Alexander and all of the staff. It was the relationships with my cohort. I have forged friendships that I know will last a lifetime. I learned how to create community and I brought that learning home. I am grateful for every act of courage that I witnessed. I am grateful for every insight with which I was gifted. I am grateful for every laugh, every sob, every smile and every word I was privileged to receive.

What’s next?

I am having a great time building my business right now. I am spending a lot of time in the community, involved in fun projects that allow me to meet new people. I just finished coaching two speakers for the TEDxRVA Women event here in Richmond (Virginia, USA). I have been involved in a class that teaches entrepreneurship with an emphasis on building women and minority owned businesses and in developing a collaborative environment for new entrepreneurs. What’s next? I really am not entirely sure and that’s why I’m so excited.

Want to learn more about our course offerings? Check out our Foundation Course for transformative personal development and the first step towards becoming a Certified Coach.

About the Author: 

On a long and circuitous path to coaching, Jennifer Einolf has found herself in a lot of places of possibility. She earned a degree in English at William and Mary and a degree in Interior Design at Virginia Commonwealth University. This means she can make art, and then describe it. She has worked designing hospitals, facilitating the daily operations of a synagogue, teaching art to the self-confessed uncreative, and training churches on the use of social media. She has nurtured a delight-filled marriage, parented a quirky son through 15 eventful years (so far) and maintained an active social life with a network of oddballs, instigators, and divergent thinkers. In all those journeys and in all those places, she has come to understand that her role has often been that of a coach—the person who is present, who asks the curiosity-fueled, disruptive question that gives birth to hope and agitation and action and change. So, she pointed herself toward a new possibility and attended Newfield Network for training in ontological coaching. Now, in her business, Bold Whisper LLC, she is blissfully facilitating her clients path to real, meaningful, personal success. “What,” she wonders, “is possible if we are all living our boldest life?”