Pam Tibbs, Your Coach

It seemed a natural path for me to get a degree in Psychology at the University of Kansas and to continue my education at the University of Missouri Kansas City in Counseling Psychology. I truly enjoyed learning all the theories, but what really grabbed me were the one on one experiences and the group sessions. I loved being with the people, watching the changes they went through with my support and encouragement. I even watched as a young teenage girl came back from the brink of suicide to live a healthy happy life. Years later, I saw her mother at a restaurant where I worked and she couldn’t have thanked me enough for helping to save her daughter. Maybe someone else would have helped her just as much. I believe she had it in her all along, but it was a good feeling to hear that I had made a difference.

I decided to push forward with the restaurant career path. I felt this tug of family and life and experience there that I had never really felt before and just couldn’t ignore or let go of. I worked my way to my dream job as General Manager of a café in a modern art museum where several of my friends worked. It was a blast! We put on fabulous events, had the most amazing food, and the camaraderie was just what I needed and wanted.

When that experience ended, I took a restaurant break, as many of us do in this tough industry. But I found myself back in it almost as fast as I got out of it, or so it seemed at the time! This was a searching period for me, testing the waters with catering companies, nightclubs, even the possibility of owning my own restaurant. I struggled somewhat and found myself a bit stuck in a rut. So, when a position as a restaurant manager at a prestigious restaurant presented itself, I bit. I went full in, excited, ready to recommit to an industry and career I had tried to leave several times.

While I did thrive in this position and feel that I continued to have an impact on my employees, coworkers and bosses, there was something unfulfilled inside me. Not to mention my damn knees were giving out! As I managed to continue on, I was again presented with an opportunity to come back to a general manager position and I thought, oh surely this is what is missing. I will be the boss in charge and it will be great. I took the leap but not really that surprising, I fell short in my fulfillment journey.

 And as I searched the job market and my soul, I discovered that maybe I could get back to my counseling roots through a coaching path. I, of course, got coached myself on this, and after not too much time, I went all in. I say not too much time because my heart knew this was what it wanted. My brain was a little skeptical (still is sometimes) but my heart won out.