Kirsten Long

Communication Skills Coach

Kirsten Long is passionate about her profession of coaching. Although she has been hugely successful in two other careers, she has finally found one where she can achieve her life purpose of helping people move forwards in their lives. She has worked full time as a Coach since November 2005 to date. She started her Life Coaching (Foundation SA) course in Feb 2005 and graduated in June 2006 with distinction and got the prize for top student. During 2006 and 2007 she studied and qualified as an NLP Master Practitioner and Coach.

Kirsten has coached people from Avision, Beyers Health Care, Eskom, Sanofi Aventis and Parity Software, amongst others. She has well over 1300 hours coaching experience. Her practice includes private as well as corporate clients. She is a member of COMENSA (Coaching and Mentoring Association of SA), ICF (International Coaching federation) and Toastmasters (Advanced Communicator Silver, Competent Leader).

Kirsten has been on a personal development journey for the past 20 years and has attended courses like Harlequin, Chalice, Vista, The Heroic Journey, The Journey and The Breakthrough Experience amongst many others. She regularly attends coaching conferences and CPD (continued professional development) coaching courses with the intention of keeping up to date with the coaching world as well as honing her coaching skills.

In her previous careers Kirsten worked in the IT industry for 10 years where she progressed from a programmer to a Systems Manager and then she taught matrics for 10 years. Kirsten has been married for 23 years and has 3 teenagers.

Qualifications

• Batchelor of Science Computer Science from Wits University
• Higher Education Diploma from Unisa
• Applied Life Coaching from FoundationSA
• NLP Master Practitioner and Coach from AHT

Coaching Philosophy

The basis of her coaching is around two core values: integrity and accountability. Integrity means doing what you say you are going to do. Accountability means taking responsibility for every area of your life. Clients who work with Kirsten become increasingly aware of their level of integrity and strive towards higher levels. They also become empowered to create the life they want by becoming accountable and responsible for their lives. Kirsten believes that if you do what you say you are going to do and you take responsibility for your life, then you will achieve. Common themes that she has coached around with past and present clients include work-life balance, stress management, communication skills, relationships and assertiveness skills.

Kirsten’s coaching involves coaching for life skills (e.g. values, beliefs, purpose, skills etc) and business skills (e.g. time management, communication, management skills etc). She works with the client to define a clear overall purpose for the coaching, and each coaching session will help him/her to identify actions that will get him/ her closer to the overall goal.

Ad hoc skills

Apart from one-on-one coaching (in person/ telephone/ skype), Kirsten offers the following:

• Inspirational talks: e.g. ‘Work/ Life Balance’; ‘Renovate your life’; “Love yourself”
• Tailor made workshops
• Magazine articles. Kirsten writes a regular column for Glamour magazine as well as Kids News and All4women.co.za. Kirsten has appeared on TV and contributes regularly to various magazines like Cosmopolitan, Longevity, Destiny, Vrouekeur and many others.

Pro-bono work

Kirsten puts in many hours working with a prisoner rehabilitation program called Heartwork which runs in Johannesburg and Krugersdorp prisons.

Bryanston, Sandton, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa