Woohoo! Your Certified Financial Fitness Coach has landed.

I’m not a title guy, but I’m glad I can proudly add to my name the word “Certified Financial Fitness Coach” to help me do more of what I love doing.

Peter Asare Nyarko, FFC®

This word means a lot to me and here is the journey behind this word.

In 2020 I started my journey of becoming a certified financial coach where I can coach my clients and help my generation without borders. I enrolled with Sage Financial Solutions to studied Financial Fitness Coaching, a professional certification where reputation has a price and quality is never compromised.

A coaching program that only certifies those who deserve the title and those who continue the journey with commitment and dedication, following the ICF guidelines.

When I joined this program, I was a person and when I graduated, I became another person. I joined looking up to my trainers and mentor coaches and wishing to approach their talents as coaches, by the time I graduated I became the coach with my own personality and character.

Here is a glimpse on how my certification journey took place.

Curriculum & Modules:
There is a well-prepared comprehensive curriculum to be studied, along a large list of books to be read and projects to be executed.

There are tools and ICF code of ethics that belongs to this profession, you need to know by heart. There are presentations of coaching tools and demos. There is a lot of practice, observation and coaching taking place. You coach, you watch others coaching and you give your own observations on the coaching and you receive the trainers’ comments on your area of strength and improvement. You get coached and you get the privilege to uncover your potential and inner strength by other fellow coaches studying with you. So, it is a win-win situation where you learn a new discipline, you practice it and you work on achieving your best version. You go through 3 intensive modules that ensure you have it all (Coaching Foundations, Coaching Applications & Coaching Mastery).

Certification & Coaching Hours:
Then comes the best part ever, the coaching certification. During this period, you coach like you never did before, you have to fulfil 256 hours of coaching where you get tested live and get graded on your live coaching and your observations. You are as usual coaching and getting coached, having a trainer who grades you and a colleague who observes you. You receive a written feedback that includes your strengths and area of improvement after discussions with your mentor coaches. Their feedback is key and makes a lot of difference in you fine tuning and making sure you deliver high quality coaching. Also, we had several peer coaching zoom calls with our trainer where we discussed several readings and practices. In addition, we had a full practice day on Zoom where we learned new things and as usual, we practiced it and we received feedback.

Mentorship & Demos:
During the certification, I opted for mentorship, where I got guided and empowered to move forward in, improving my coaching skills. My mentor coaches were always available for questions, strengthening my knowledge, supporting through encouraging me to keep improving, highlighting my strength as well as areas of improvement and how to develop them

Exams & Projects:
As earlier mentioned, there are days where you get evaluated as a coach and as an observer. Also, there are videos you present, and you get feedback from a supervisor who evaluates. Finally, there are written exam with different topics and cases that you must defend or explain or argue. By that time, you are ready to rock and get it done. You are fully prepared after this evaluation and exposure to coaching, you have built your confidence and proved your skill.

Now I received officially my certification and I am entitled to the “certified” word. I have completed over 18 months of training and 256 hrs of coaching practice.

I am really grateful to the FFC team, starting with its founder Saundra Davis, who trained me along very qualified trainers and coaches, as well, Shipra Gupta, Professional Certified Coach IDC PCC/ICF who happened to be my mentor coach and where I benefited a lot on our evaluation and feedback sessions. Candra Young, Kieran Barkley, Jason Stokes and all who ensured I was always on track with every single detail. The FFC team is a special team, they are serious, empathetic, friendly, humble, and very competent, words can’t give any of them credit. My respect and sincere gratitude to them and the time and dedication they have put, making sure to fulfil FFC Certification, a training for excellence.

I am also grateful to my colleagues – #finfitcrew especially Parthar Iyengar, Shilpa Bhaskar Gole, we developed friendship, respect, and we practiced together. It was an honour studying with you all.

I extend my gratitude to my partners (my clients) who ventured in my early coaching practice and gave me the opportunity to excel and improve. I am grateful to my current clients who are trusting me and my future clients who will eventually venture to improve their personal and financial life and hire me.

Finally, I am deeply thankful to my family who always encouraged and believed in me. My great mentor in this space, Valentino Sabuco, who already believes I am a great coach, my Executive Board Members at Center for Financial Literacy Education Africa, and the entire team who was beyond supportive.

To sum up the coaching profession is about working on oneself. The journey is not over yet, you learn that learning and exposure is a continuous process in the coaching profession, and you need to keep working on yourself and your coaching. This profession is expanding dramatically, and you need to be updated with all the new learnings. It is like practicing sports; you need to train by learning and exercise by practicing coaching.

A final word, to be a coach is a responsibility and to be a certified coach entails high commitment and quality involvement.

This was my certification journey where coaching became a life journey of motivation and passion.

I’m available to serve my global audience and clients with high quality standards and values learnt from the FFC certification and ICF code of ethics.

I’m your global certified financial fitness coach from now till 2025. Let’s go!!!

#FinFitCrew #CertifiedCoach #FinancialFitnessCoach #FFCAccredited #ThatFinancialLiteracyGuy